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Some Burning Questions 

Pertaining to 

The Messiahship of Jestis. 


Why the Jews do not Accept Him. 



BY RABBI LV WEISS. 


Revised and Enlarged Edition. 



1900. 


Library of Concfres^ 

1 wo Copies Received ! 

JAN 28 1901 

Copyright ontry 

au.y, /f«o 
+&3j>JL£. 

SECOND COPY 


StA'S 35 

. W4 
lloo 



Copyrighted by the Author. 

1900 






CONTENTS. 

Preface 6 

Introductory 7 

Which is the Best Religion? 11 

Did Christianity Supersede Judaism? 17 

Prophet and Prophecy 25 

Unprophesied Prophecies 31 

Unfulfilled Fulfilments 39 

Unmessianic Messiahship 47 

Savior and Salvation 54 

Discrepancies 62 

God is Unchangeable 72 

Do Devil and Hell Exist? 83 



PREFACE. 


‘‘Truth, truth seeks my soul; 

She asks, ‘Oh, where is light?’ 

Seek, whom all extol; 

With him the day is bright.” 

Every line and every sentence in this little book shall have 
been written with the words of David fixed in my mind : 

T have chosen the way of truth; 

Thy judgments have I laid before me. 

I have clung to Thy testimony.” 

It is not my aim and purpose to belittle my neighbor’s 
religion, but to defend and set aright my own. The re- 
spect and deference I regard the creed of others with would 
forbid me to attempt a work of this kind, were it not that 
some missionaries and some fanatics hurl at us the imputa- 
tion that we are blind and stubborn for not believing in 
Christ. 

That millions of people, good, honest and true, believe 
in him is by no means conclusive evidence that the religion 
of the Jews is wrong. Christians believe as they do because 
they are brought up to it from their earliest infancy, until 
their whole mind becomes absorbed with that faith, and 
accepting the constructions and interpretations of their 
divines and expounders without thorough and impartial in- 
vestigation by themselves, they believe it blindly, even 
beyond the slightest spark of reason. 

Anv faith, however, that menaces the peace of and creates 


6 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


prejudice against another faith, and causes to withhold the 
good will of one from another, is an impure faith, void of 
that essence that would signalize it as God’s truth; there- 
fore I imposed upon myself the task of expounding, by 
means of the sublimest truth, “Some Burning Questions” 
— questions that are of vital importance to two religions 
that should be on the friendliest terms with one another. 
Even as a daughter and a mother should love each other 
under all conditions and circumstances, so should Christian- 
ity, as a daughter, esteem and respect her mother, Judaism, 
that surely affords her good will to her offspring, Christian- 
ity. Both should stand clasped hand in hand in the most 
amicable attitude, and each should rejoice over the welfare 
and prosperity of the other. 

To disseminate thi$ sentiment is my fondest aspiration, 
and to fraternize all who are separated by dint of faith- 
prejudice is my holiest desire. 

Thus I send out this little volume into the world, craving 
and hoping that it will accomplish, if not wholly, partly its 
mission. E. WEISS. 

Columbus, O., 1893. 

N. B. I have no preface to the second edition, except that 
I am thoroughly convinced that a work of this kind is of 
incalculable benefit to Jews who are not posted in this branch 
of education, and to intelligent Christians who honestly seek 
for the proper light and for the naked truth. 

“Some Burning Questions” should be in the hands of 
every Jew who has the welfare of his religion at heart, 
and every Christian who loves truth. This book will be a 
blessing to all. L. Weiss. 

Chattanooga, Tenn., 1900. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


There is not a people or denomination living whose re- 
ligion is founded on principles more sublime than Israel’s. 
When all people on earth worshipped idols, some of the 
most frivolous character, the Lord’s behest dispelled the 
darkness of Israel through the knowledge of the One and 
True God, before whom the poorest beggar and the richest 
master can kneel alike, and whose supremacy was proclaimed 
to last from eternity to everlasting and extend to all the 
ends of the earth. 

How since then religion kept pace with the changes and 
mutations of time, now progressing and now retrogressing, 
does not belong here to relate ; but it is meet to say that 
Christianity, springing from the bosom of Judaism, gov- 
erned by some of its laws and guided by some of its ethics, 
has become a powerful religion, and to those who had no 
divine religion previously, it has become a sublime creed. 
Yet, when we Jews are asked to become Christians, it be- 
hooves us to ascertain what advantage Christianity offers 
us over Judaism. That it is the predominating creed is but 
of temporal and material value; for spiritual conditions we 
must look deeper. 

Our conceptions are formed by our faculties, visual, audi- 
tory and mental ; what the eyes see and the ears hear the 
mind' grasps and forms the ideas accordingly; and by it 
our manner and conduct are governed. What we then see 


8 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


and hear of Christianity is by no means more conducive to 
human virtues than the old and tried Judaism; and when 
we contemplate the implacable schisms that rise between 
Christian and Christian, with the irreparable chasms dividing 
them, we cannot be impressed favorably enough to leave our 
more united ranks and join the other. 

How inspiring it is to hear them preach and teach with 
sacred zeal and apparent earnestness the beautiful doctrine 
of the Mosaic dispensation (Lev. xix:i8), “Love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself,” and then see them hate each other with holy 
malignance ! The Catholic anathematizing the Protestant, 
who in turn impugns Catholicism, with the numberless 
Christian denominations, with more or less aspersive differ- 
ences looming up on all sides. Before they ask us, then, 
to join the ranks of Christianity, we say to them with the 
celebrated William Dean Howell, when he was asked to sug- 
gest what should be done to dispel the prejudice against the 
Jews: “Christianize the Christians!” This is good advice; 
for how many neglect to Christianize those Christians that 
know beyond that the Jews crucified Christ absolutely noth- 
ing, and waste their time in trying to convert the Jew? 

Often we hear sermons preached that have not the least 
spark of Christianity in them, but are replete with sentiments 
evoking prejudice against the Jews, when Christianity would 
be better served if the preachers would confine themselves 
to precepts and doctrines that elevate Christianity rather 
than calumniate those that serve God in a different way. 

Speaking of the existing prejudices against the Jews, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes said: 

“I shared more or less the prevailing prejudices against 
the persecuted race. I used to read in my hymn-book — I 
hope I quote correctly — 

“See what a living stone 
The builders did refuse! 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


9 


Yet God has built His church thereon 
In spite of envious Jews.” 

“I grew up inheriting the traditional idea that they were 
a race lying under a curse for their obstinacy in refusing 
the gospel. Like other children of New England birth, I 
walked in the narrow path of exclusiveness. ... In the 
nurseries of the old-fashioned Orthodoxy there was one re- 
ligion in the world — one religion and a multitude of detest- 
able, literally damnable impositions, believed in by uncounted 
millions — who were doomed to perdition for so believing. 
The Jews were the believers in one of these false religions. 
It had been true once, but was now a pernicious and abom- 
inable lie.” He continues with becoming irony, and adds: 
“There are two virtues which Christians have found hard 
to exemplify in practice ; these are modesty and civility. 
The founder of the Christian religion appeared among a 
people accustomed to look for a Messiah — a special mes- 
senger from heaven with an authoritative message. They 
were intimately acquainted with every expression having 
reference to this divine messenger. They had a religion of 
their own, about which Christianity agrees with Judaism in 
asserting that it was of divine origin. It is a serious fact, 
to which we do not give all the attention it deserves, that 
this divinely instructed people were not satisfied with the 
evidence that the young rabbi who came to overthrow their 
ancient church and found a new one was a supernatural 
being,” etc. . . . “Instead of remembering,” he con- 

tinues further, “that they were entitled to form their own 
judgment of the teacher, as they had judged Hillel and other 
great instructors- — Christians, as they called themselves — 
have insulted, calumniated, oppressed, abased, outraged ‘the 
chosen race’ during the long succession of centuries since 
the Jewish contemporaries of the founder of Christianity 
made up their minds that he did not meet the conditions re- 


10 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


quired by the subject of the prediction of their scriptures. 
The course of argument against them is very briefly and 
effectively stated by Mr. Emerson: 

“This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will 
kill you if you say he was a man.” . . . Then he sagely 

says: “If the creeds of mankind would try to understand 
each other before attempting mutual extermination, they 
would be sure to find a meaning in beliefs which are different 
from their own. . . . The golden rule should govern us 

in dealing with those whom we call unbelievers, with 
heathens and all who do not accept our religious views. The 
Jews are with us a perpetual lesson to teach us modesty 
and civility. The religion we profess is not self evident. 
It did not convince the people to whom it was sent. We 
have no claim to take it for granted that we are all right 
and they are all wrong. And, therefore, in the midst of all 
triumphs of Christianity, it is well that the stately synagogue 
should lift its walls by the side of the aspiring cathedral, 
a perpetual reminder that there are many mansions in the 
Father's earthly house as well as in the heavenly one; that 
civilized humanity, longer in time and broader in space than 
any historical form of belief, is mightier than any one in- 
stitution or organization it includes." With more such 
sublime logic and transcendant reason, he concludes: 

“It is not to be expected that intimate relations will be 
established between Jewish and Christian communities until 
both become so far rationalized and humanized that their 
differences are comparatively unimportant. But already 
there is an evident approximation in the extreme left of 
what is called liberal Christianity and the representatives of 
modern Judaism. The life of a man like Sir Moses Monte- 
fiore reads a lesson from the Old Testament which might 
well have been inspired by the noblest teaching of the Chris- 
tian gospels,” — Over the Teacups, pp. 193-99, 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


IZ 


To this flowing from the pen of a Christian I wish to 
offer no amendment, and if all Christians thought like this, 
this work would be superfluous; as it is, however, ii: must 
needs go forth and plead the cause of Israel. May God 
speed its mission ! 


WHICH IS THE BEST RELIGION? 


“Religion! pure and heavenly guest, 

Possessed of thee, I feel I’m blest! 

Though every other hope depart, 

Still may I clasp thee to my heart.” 

Religion is a precious diadem — a gift from God to man, 
wherewith to perfect his morals and gauge his propensities. 
Why it was named religion may best be understood from 
the etymology of the word. It may either be derived from 
relegere, to gather, or collect again, or from religare, to bind 
fast. When we learn from Scriptures (Genesis xi., i, etc.) 
what unanimity the family of man enjoyed, and find them 
afterwards scattered all over the habitable globe, possessed 
of minds of so many differences, and ideas so opposed to 
each other ; worshiping idols of the most absurd forms and 
characters, each professing a creed more irrational than 
another, with no strength or feasibility in any to cement 
them together into a fraternal brotherhood, it becomes then 
apparent that religion was given to collect mankind again 
into one common brotherhood; to bind them fast into one 
human family, with the sublime idea that we have all but 
one Father and one God. 

God gave religion to make mankind better and loftier; 
to inculcate in the human breast the noblest virtues and 
purest principles. Now, we ask, which is the religion that 
cap do this best? The answer to this we find beautifully 


12 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


expressed by the German poet, Lessing, when he makes a 
Friar say to a Jew : 

“Nathan, you are a Christian! yes, by God, 

You are a Christian — never was a, better.” 

To which the Jew replies : 

“Heaven bless us! What makes me to you a Christian, 

Makes you to me a Jew.” 

This is a reply multum in parvo, so to say, for the religion 
one possesses is obtained by training and education. The 
one born from a Christian mother, raised, trained and 
educated by Christian parents, will grow up a Christian; 
while one born of a Jewish mother, raised, trained and edu- 
cated by Jewish parents, will grow up a Jew. This is the 
rule; the exception is exceedingly rare. The names Jew 
and Christian are, I venture to say, but cognomina!, invented 
and denominated by men. Moses never called the Israelites 
Jews, but they were called so after the Kingdom of Israel 
was divided into two, viz: Kingdom of Judah and Kingdom 
of Israel, and the followers of Judah were called Yehudim 
(Judaites, i. e., Jews), and neither did Jesus nor the apostles 
call the followers of Christianity Christians, but the Antio- 
cheans called them so first (see Acts xi., 26) ; hence the 
names indicate nothing, and as to the efficacy, each makes 
men and women the noblest creatures of God. Each teaches 
to love God and our fellow man, and the one who hates 
his neighbor because he professes a different religion, is 
neither a Jew nor Christian ; he is a bigot, a fanatic. The 
one who maligns or in any way wrongs his fellow man 
because of the difference in their religion, follows the dic- 
tates of neither creed, but is prompted by feelings most 
irreligious. 

This, some will say, is true as far as its practicability is 
concerned ; still there can be but. one true religion. Why 


burning questions. 

can there be but one true religion? Is there but one true 
method to teach mathematics ? Is there but one true method 
to teach astronomy ? Is there but one true method to raise 
and train children? Each teacher may have a different 
process of solving the problem in mathematics, each teacher 
may have a different theory of explaining the movements 
and positions of the heavenly bodies, and their pupils become 
equally qualified in the knowledge of these sciences. Parents 
all have different ways and methods of raising and training 
children, yet the results are the same. Religion, too, is but 
a theory — a method to make mankind better and purer. For 
the sake of God religion is not necessary. His infinitude 
we cannot magnify; His power we cannot add to; His will 
we cannot enhance; His wisdom we cannot increase. We 
can do nothing to benefit God, but we need every means 
to teach us to do right; to prompt us to be just; to guide 
us on every path of virtue and morality. Which is the 
religion that holds these means? Again we will apply to 
Gessing and see how he illustrates this. His “Nathan the 
Wise” relates to Saladin that a father had a ring which 
possessed the charm of making the holder beloved before 
God and man, and this ring was a family relic to be left 
lineally to the most beloved child. This father had three 
sons whom he loved dearly, and loved them all equally ; and 
it worried him long to which one he should leave this family 
relic, as he did not wish to slight any two, which had to be 
the case if he left it to one. He at last decided to have three 
rings made in place of this one and exactly like it, and 
when he felt that the time of his end approached he sum- 
moned his sons to his bedside — one at a time — and gave each 
a ring, with the admonition to keep it so that it should not 
menace the peace and hurt the feelings of the other two 
brothers, and he died. It was not long, however, before it 
became known to the brothers that each had a ring, and a 


i4 som£ Ritoritid 

dispute arose between them as to which was the genulti€ 
one. Unable to settle this question among themselves, they 
applied to a judge to decide the matter; but how puzzled 
was he when each related to him the same story. Each 
claimed to have received his ring from his father on his 
dying bed, admitting at the same time that he was bidden 
not to grieve his brothers. “Do I understand you to say,” 
the judge queried, “that the genuine ring can make the 
holder beloved before God and man?” They answered 
affirmatively. “Very well,” continued the august judge, 
“let me see which of your rings possesses this virtue.” They 
stood perplexed, one gazing at the other in silence, until 
the judge relieved them of their suspense by addressing them 
further : “Can you not see that you are deceived deceivers ? 
The purpose of your wise father was undoubtedly not to 
make a difference between his children, as he loved you all 
equally well, and must have had three rings made alike so 
that each should have one. Gentleness, benevolence and for- 
bearance are attributes to make one beloved before God and 
man, and feeling yourselves to be the recipients of your 
father’s will in this ring, that itself should imbue you with 
these attributes and cease your strife and quarrel. His love 
for the other two diminishes not the love for each of you,” 
and the brothers departed satisfied. These three rings are the 
three religions. Each religionist holds his creed as a gift 
from God — his heavenly Father; and what is the object of 
each of these religions? To make man and woman good, 
and useful members of the family of man; since, then, we 
find good men and women in every creed and every re- 
ligion, is not every creed and every religion the true one to 
him who believes it with perfect faith? We certainly cannot 
believe that God is so unjust as to imbue one with the true 
religion and the other with the false religion, and hold then 
the false religionist accountable for his ignorance of the 


soMiv BtrkNiNC gu^riONS. 1 5 

true religion. The Lord would not open the eyes of one 
and strike the other with opacity, then punish him for his 
blindness. Nay, it was the Lord’s will, as the prophet wrote, 
that a time would come “When all people will walk, each 
m the name of his God, and we will walk in the name of 
the Lord our God.” (See Micah iv., 5.) In other words, 
each will follow the dictates of his religion without inter- 
fering with or derogating another. If the Lord wanted but 
one favorite people to be his children he would not have 
called Israel “my first-born son” (see Exod. iv., 22), which 
clearly indicates that he considered all others his children 
with Israel as the first born, or else he would have called 
them simply my only son, or my son , from which inferences 
could perhaps be drawn that he had chosen Israel exclusively 
and wanted no other sons; but God is too benignant to 
disown his creatures, even if they are as obscure as the people 
were in the time when Moses lived, when they were idola- 
trous and uncultured. This demonstrates the glorious truth 
that before God all are acceptable, whether their religion is 
fostered in a temple or synagogue, in a cathedral or mosque, 
in a gorgeous church or in an unpretentious little meeting- 
house, as long as they carry out the imports of religion, i. e., 
to collect, to bind fast, to cement the human family into 
fraternal relationship. As long, however, as the calumny 
is taught in churches and Sunday-schools that the Jews 
crucified the Saviour, so long become hatred and malice 
infused in the human breast, and vengeance with it. The 
tender little heart of a child becomes early impregnated with 
the idea that Jesus, the Loving Redeemer, was most cruelly 
and mercilessly dealt with by the Jews, and the feeling that 
creates will not leave them till their last breath expires. It 
naturally creates a sentiment of deep disgust or some re- 
pugnance for the people that crucified Christ — for the people 
that said, “his blood be upon us 1” — which gives the ignorant 


SOM# £UkttiNci gtrK^iONg. 


16 

and the bigot, void of every human sympathy, license to hate, 
and maltreat if he can the crucifiers of the Saviour, not- 
withstanding that over eighteen hundred years have elapsed 
since the crucifixion took place ; but thousands of years more 
will not wipe that out as long as it is fostered in their sacred 
and holy places. The descendants of the claimed crucifiers 
of Jesus will ever and ever be held accountable for the deeds 
their remote ancestors stand accused of. Would we hold a 
sheriff accountable for having taken a man's life lawfully 
sentenced to hang? Of course not; and yet Christians who 
claim that Jesus had to die by the will of God, hence the Jews, 
if they did crucify him (which I show in this work that they 
did not — see Discrepancies), were inspired by God, should 
they and all their posterity forever be held accountable, and 
be hated and despised forever? Would we Jews think of 
considering the Egyptian people guilty of tyranny forever 
because their ancient forefathers oppressed our ancestors? 
Or would we think of hating and harboring ill will in our 
breast toward all Christians because their antecessors have 
persecuted and maltreated our ancestors ? “The soul of him 
that sinneth,” says the Good Book, “shall die.” Ezekiel 
xviii., 4. “The fathers shall not be put to death for their 
children, nor shall the children be put to death for their 
fathers ; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” 
Deutr. xxiv., 16. 

This is divine justice, accepted and embodied in all laws 
throughout the civilized world, and any law, rule or custom in 
conflict with this belongs to the barbarous ages and times. 

It was never the will of God that man should hate and 
persecute man, no matter under what conditions, and the one 
that does persecute or oppress even a single individual has 
not the minutest idea of true religion in him. 

The true religion must be that which ever inculcates into 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 1/ 

the human breast love to God and to mankind in general, 
promulgating the sublime doctrine : 

Let man to man a brother be, 

A friend to all in need; 

And dry the tears of all who weep, 

Not asking for their creed. 


DID CHRISTIANITY SUPERSEDE JUDAISM? 

The Talmud relates a beautiful legend: When God created 
the two great luminaries, the sun and the moon, they were 
equally brilliant, but the moon, envious of the sheen of the 
sun, remonstrated. “Can there be two monarchs with one 
crown ? Should a sun and a moon shine with equal radiance ?” 
“No,” replied God, “they should not, and because you find 
the fault, your light shall be diminished:” and she became 
the lesser light. This may not be applicable to Judaism and 
Christianity in general, but it is perfectly so to those who 
still hold that their, and only their religion, is the divinely 
authorized creed, and no other denomination can wear an 
equal crown with it. “How can there be two religions, both 
coming from God?” we may hear them ask; and indeed to 
such inquirers we may reply, Your religion is the lesser light, 
too small to be compared to the religion of broadness and 
reasonableness. 

That Judaism is the mother of Christianitv. none will 
dispute ; but the question that will here engage our consider- 
ation is, Did Christianity not supersede it? 

While Christianity was conceived in and born from the 
womb of Israel's creed, and has become the predominant 
religion, it does not follow that Judaism became extinct. 
The New Testament does most certainly not say so. Jesus 
was a Jew and had never renounced his religion, nor did he 
teach aught contrary to the laws of Moses and the precepts 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


18 

of the prophets. “Think not ,” said he, “that I am come to 
destroy the law and the prophets ; I am not come to destroy 
but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth 
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, 
till all be fulfilled” (see Mat. v., 17-18). 

As Jesus was so wont to speak in parables, this is one of 
his parabolic expressions in which he wishes to convey the 
idea that, “till heaven and earth pass” — which will never be 
— the law of God, the law which Moses commanded neither 
to add to nor diminish aught from it (see Deuter iv., 2), 
shall not pass either, and that means it shall be never ceasing. 

Some insist that Jesus referred here to the fulfilllment of 
prophecy concerning himself as the Messiah, but that cannot 
be ; for Jesus speaks here of the fulfillment of the law and 
not of prophecy. He says, “One jot or one tittle shall in no 
wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” and continues : 
“Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments 
shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but who- 
soever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great 
in heaven.” From this it is visible how he upheld the law 
which is synonymous with commandment, but by no means 
with prophecy. Law is obligatory, prophecy is advisory; 
law is to be enacted, prophecy is an instruction, hence law 
can be violated, or broke, prophecy can only be disbelieved. 
Jesus accordingly meant what he spoke: “One jot or one 
tittle shall never pass from the law.” This view is made still 
clearer where Jesus makes the law of Moses obligatory in 
unequivocal terms. He says : 

“The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat : All there- 
fore whatsoever they bid you to observe, that observe and 
do ; but do not ye after their work : for they sav and do not.” 
(Matthew xxiii., 2-3). 

No matter then how he condemned the manner, conduct 
and dealing of the Scribes and Pharisees, ths law of Moses 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


19 


was still his ideal ; whenever he was asked what to do to 
inherit eternal life (see Mat. xix., 16, Mark x., 19, Luke 
xviii., 20), Jew-like he would answer, “Follow the com- 
mandments!” 

When a Scribe asked him which was the first command- 
ment, he replied: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one" 
(see Mark xii., 29), in a verse that Jews recite in their 
prayers private and public to this very day 

We hear him say as he is acccused of eating and associat- 
ing with publicans and sinners instead of with Jews : “They 
that be whole need not the physician, but they that are sick ; 
I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repent- 
ance” (see Mat. ix., 12, 13, Mark ii., 17, Luke v., 31, 32). 

Had Jesus intended to abrogate Judaism and substitute it 
with Christianity, he had to apprise the Jews of this ; but 
considering them whole that needed no physician, righteous 
that needed him not to call them to repentance, is evidence 
that he considered their religion sufficient to make them 
what they were or ought to be. 

As we see him observe the Jewish feasts (see Mat. xxvi., 
17, Mark xiv., 12, Luke xxii., 8, 9, John vii., 8) and hear him 
teach Jewish doctrines, can we believe for a moment that he 
intended to formulate a religion to supersede the one he 
lived in and the one he urged to follow? 

To believe in Jesus and to follow him did not necessitate 
to renounce the ancestral faith any more than if to-day an 
orthodox Jew would join a reformed Jewish congregation, 
or if a Catholic would become a Protestant. 

We see this demonstrated in Paul’s attitude. He espoused 
the cause of Jesus and called himself still a Jew and a 
Hebrew (see Acts xxi., 39, xxii., 3). He speaks with spe- 
cial pride as he writes to the Philippians, calling himseli “A 
Hebrew of the Hebrews” (see Phil, iii., 5) and to the Co- 
rinthians bf> writes in reference to the Jew? boastfully ; 


20 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


“ Are they Hebrews ? so am I. Are they Israelites ? so am 
I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I” (see 2 Corinth, 
xi., 22). 

How scrupulously he observed the Jewish feasts we learn 
when on one occasion he is so anxious to go to Jerusalem to 
celebrate an approaching feast (see Acts xviii., 21). 

We find him to circumcise Timotheus, a disciple (ib. 
xvi., 3), which, if Christianity had superseded Judaism, 
would have been a meaningless ceremony supplanted by 
baptism. 

Even the dietary law seems to have been adhered to by 
the primitive Christians so tenaciously that Peter had to 
offer ample explanation when he was charged : “Thou went- 
est in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them” (see 
Acts xi., 3). 

Paul, in particularizing the conditions under which to 
receive Gentiles into their fold, says: “We write to them 
that they abstain from pollution of idols, and from fornica- 
tion, and from things strangled (just as commanded by 
Moses, Leviticus vii., 24), and from blood” (Acts xv., 20). 
This last clause is repeated several times in the laws of 
Moses (see Lev. iii., 17, xvii., 12, xix., 26, Deuter. xi\., 16). 
Are these not all evidences that Christianity was Judaism 
in every particular except in the belief of Jesus as the Mes- 
siah ? and that belief was not the same as it is to-day, but the 
same as the Jews believed a Messiah to be, a regent, establish- 
ing infinite peace. (See subject: “Unmessianic Messia- 
ship.”) 

Damnations and condemnations were positively not hurled 
at those who did not accept the new doctrine, as we hear 
Paul speaking to the Jews with all his eloquence and zeal, 
and “Some believed the things which were spoken, and 
some believed not, and when they agreed not among them- 
selves they departed,” etc. (see Acts xxviii.. 25), so differ- 


SOMt BUkNINC QUESTIONS. 


21 


ent from those dogmatists of to-day who teach the absolute 
salvation in Christ only, and damn and condemn all who 
believe not in Jesus as the Savior. All in all Christianity 
was never intended to be at variance with, much less inimical 
to Judaism, but probably aimed to be one of the sects* of 
Israelites. 

That it was intended to be part and parcel of the religion 
of the Old Testament we judge from the fact that the New 
Testament did not embody all the laws necessary to guide 
the human propensities as it no doubt depended on the Old 
Testament to supply this want. 

Paul, the mouthpiece of Christianity, says in his epistle 
to the Romans (x., 5, 6), “For Moses describes the 
righteousness which is of the law, that the man that doeth 
those things shall live by them (this has reference to Lev. 
xviii., 5) ; but the righteousness which is of faith speaketh 
on this wise, say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into 
heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above V’. THs 
is evidence that the New Testament purported to teach the 
faith in Christ, but the law to guide life was still to be drawn 
from the wellspring of God’s truth as chronicled in the Old 
Testament. 

Faith is that part of religion that leads, so to say, the 
soul to heaven, but it is essentially necessary to have a law 
to live by, and to be guided by on earth ; for this law the 
New Testament looked to the Old. John says (i., 17). 
“For the law was given by Moses, but grac^ and truth came 
by Jesus Christ,” that is, according to his ideas, the new 

•At this time there were three sects within the fold of Judaism: 
the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. The Pharisees were 
the main party, believing the oral traditions to be as divine as the 
Scriptures; the Sadducees, on the other hand, discarded all unau- 
thentic traditions and believed only in the Scriptures; the Essenes 
differed entirely from their other brethren both in manner and ap- 
parel, yet they were Jews, and even the Samaritans who accepted 
only the Pentateuch, called themselves Israelites. 


21 


SOM# BUfcNlNci QUESTIONS. 


doctrine was a complement of Hhe old dispensation. He saW 
in it the grace and truth, but not the law, for that he still 
looked to the Mosaic teachings. 

Paul observed the Mosaic law as we find in Acts xxi., 24, 
where the disciples say to him, “And they are informed of 
thee that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the 
Gentiles to forsake Moses/' etc. “Do therefore this that we 
say to thee : We have four men which have a vow on them ; 
then take and purify thyself with them,' 'etc., ‘'and all may 
know that these things whereof they were informed concern- 
ing thee are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest 
orderly and keepest the law.” 

To fortify our position still more we will cite a few laws, 
of the many too numerous to chronicle, from the Old Testa- 
ment of which not a trace is found in the New, and which 
belong to the truly religious life; and without the obser- 
vance of them none can be truly religious: To help a poor 
brother (in faith) and help him sufficiently (see Deuter. 
xv., 8). 

To help all irrespective of faith (ib., 11). 

To help the stranger, the widow and the orphan (ib. xxiv., 
17-21), and to help them in every way, shape, manner and 
form. 

Not to oppress a stranger, a widow and orphans. (See 
Exod. xxii., 22.) 

To lead stray cattle back to the owner (see Deuter. xxii., 
1), and return to him all lost property unconditionally. 

Even if the owner is an enemy, the same duty is made 
incumbent upon us (see Exod. xxiii., 4). 

If an enemy's ass is laboring under too heavy a burden 
we must surely assist it (ib., 5). 

Even to pay the wages of hirelings promptly, before the 
sun went down that day, must be observed (see Deuter. 
xxiv., 14, etc.) ; and hundreds of other laws — besides the ten 


SOMR BURNING QUljSHONB* 

commandments without which Judaism and Christianity 
would not be divine — laws indispensable to a religious and 
moral life, which are laid down in the Old Testament and 
not a mention made of in the New, makes it evident that 
the New Testament was written as an appendix to the Old. 
Had the New Testament-religion been intended to supersede 
Judaism, that book would have had to contain all laws neces- 
sary for a religious and moral code without necessitating its 
followers to look to another source for the teachings of 
morals and virtues. Faith must be supported by good and 
noble deeds ; without them faith is hke a tree that bears no 
fruit, like a field that yields no produce. It is a glimmering 
light that instead of spreading a luminous ray impairs the 
eyesight ; hence the New Testament-religion is only perfect 
with the laws, and their observance, laid down in the Old. 
“Oh, we do not dispute the authenticity and validity of the 
Old Testament laws, especially the ever-divine decalogue,” 
says my Christian brother, “we only hold that the Messiah 
predicted in the Old Book has come and you received him 
not.” As I will speak of this question more fully under the 
subject, “Discrepancies,” we will only ask here, what has 
the Messiah brought you if you have still to look to the law 
book of the Jews for the means of moral teachings? A faith 
in prophecies so abstruse that the very owner of the book 
containing those prophecies cannot recognize their interpre- 
tation? On that which is clear and comprehensive, and 
sufficient to make man and woman good and noble in earthly 
life we agree ; what we do not agree on is a theory of faith — 
a speculation in the hereafter, a state of which none has the 
remotest knowledge. 

Let us then first perfect our men and women for earthly 
existence ; let us first inculcate into the mind the knowledge 
which is clear and comprehensive, ere we can grasp the 
other, and for this the Old Testament is perfectly adaptable. 


6oM£ BURNING QUESTION^. 


reasonably and primarily teaches, that not the creed is the 
prime object in religion, but the deed. 

That Christianity was never formed to be inimical to 
Judaism, the fact alone that it received life in the lap of that 
ancient creed will tell us. Will a daughter bear enmity to 
the mother that has begotten her? to the woman at whose 
breast she nursed and whose life blood nuis in her veins, 
even if that mother would be of the humblest station ? And 
if that daughter would rise to the highest position would she 
not raise up her mother too? would she not delight in placing 
her on the loftiest eminence even if their sentiments differed? 
This child, this daughter is Christianity. From the mother 
lap of Judaism she received life ; from her she was begotten ; 
her life-blood runs in her veins, and her breast nursed into 
life and existence the Master and Savior that Christians 
revere. Is it not then the sacred duty of a Christian to 
regard Judaism with deep respect? and true and good Chris- 
tians do not violate this duty, except so-called Christians, 
bigots and fanatics. Christians the more enlightened they 
become and the higher they rise in culture and intelligence, 
the higher they raise the old mother Judaism. They com- 
prehend, as we do, that both religions can be divine, if we 
make them so without diminishing the divineness of one or 
of the other. 

Besides, Scripture says (see Isaiah it, and Micah iv.) that 
the house of the God of Jacob shall at the (( last days’ * stand 
on the highest eminence, where all people and nations shall 
flow to for instruction. It does not mean that they would 
give up their creed or religion; it only indicates that they 
would learn from and follow the example of the old mother 
creed, but mentions nothing about the old creed learning 
It contains laws, precepts and doctrines that climes and ages 
could not make obsolete. They are valid and useful to-day 
as they were four thousand years ago, and Judaism very 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 

from the new. The fact is realized in that all the propensi- 
ties, the virtue and morality that Christians practice, are 
Old Testament prescriptions — teachings of the ‘‘house of 
the God of Jacob.” 

This adds to the facts already elicited, the sublime truth, 
that Judaism needs not be the only and true religion ; nor 
need Christianity supersede its parent creed. The aim of 
both is to acknowledge the true and living God as the 
Creator and Parent of mankind. Why not, then, be brothers 
— to love one another — to feel for one another? Whv not 
engrave vividly into our conscience the sweet cognizance 
that — 

God sure delights all human kind 
Into one brotherhood to bind. 



PROPHET AND PROPHECY. 

The word prophet is of Greek origin, composed of pro , 
for, and phetes, to speak, and means literally to speak for 
another; hence the prophets in Scriptures were properly 
called so, as they generally spoke to the people of God, but 
the idea that they could and did foretell events and occur- 
rences originated with superstitious interpreters, who went 
into all kinds of speculation as to the meaning of prophetic 
words. Whatever prophecy was literally fulfilled became so 
during the existence of the prophet that foretold it, as for 
instance in i Kings xvii., 1-7, where Elijah foretold that no 
dew nor rain shall descend until he shall have given the 
word ; or ib. xx., 36, where it was foretold that a disobedient 
prophet should be met by a lion and be killed, both of which 
happened as predicted; or 2 Kings vii., 1-18, where the 
prophet Elisha foretells that “To-morrow about this time 
shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel,” and it came 


26 


SOM# burning questions. 


so, etc., but prophecies that encompassed an indefinite time 
were never literally realized. As to prophets, the Sriptures 
abound with them. Abraham was called a prophet; what 
did he ever prohpesy in the sense of predicting- nothing; 
but as he must have enlightened the people around him and 
converted them to his monotheistic belief, which Scripture 
expresses as, “the souls he had gotten'’ (see Genesis xii., 
5), the Lord called him a prophet, ib. xx., 7. 

Aaron being a good speaker is called a prophet. When 
God sent Moses to Pharaoh and Moses complained that he 
was hard of speech, the Lord told him “Aaron shall be thy 
prophet” (Exod. vii., 1) i. e., thy spokesman. 

When on one occasion the Israelites murmured, the spirit 
of God came upon the seventy elders, who together with 
Moses assembled the people outside of their camps and 
prophesied for them. Two men, Eldad and Medad, re- 
mained in the camp and prophesied to those that did not 
go outside the camp (see Numb, xi., 27). 

What did the elders, and what did these two men pro- 
phesy? they must have undoubtedly spoken words of pacifi- 
cation, and it was called prophecy. 

When Saul went out to look for his asses, on which oc- 
casion Samuel anointed him king over Israel, he met a com- 
pany — a whole company? — of prophets, and as they pro- 
phesied, he too, began to prophesy with them (see 1 Samuel 

X., II). 

What can this mean else than that Saul, descending from 
humble parentage and was not known as a talented youth, 
now mingles with scholarly men he meets, and discourses 
readily on topics of law and knowledge in general, which was 
then called prophesying. 

Miriam was called a prophetess, because she inspired the 
women of Israel to follow her in praise and song to Jehovah 
(see Exodus xv. ; 20). 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


Deborah was called a prophetess because she led Israel to 
victory (see Judges iv., 4, etc.), from which it seems that 
even noble deeds made one a prophet in those days. That 
was the parlance. 

Moses was called a prophet whose like there never was 
(see Deuter xxxiv., 10), and y et he never foretold an event 
or an occurrence that came to pass literally. I say literally 
because some dogmatic bible interpreters always find some- 
thing that suits their imagination to call prophecy and ful- 
filment, but the Lord would assuredly not intend to perplex 
us with prophecies of indefinite time ahead of their fulfil- 
ment. This question, however, is not new. We find in 
Ezekiel xii., 27, this same question raised, and the Lord 
said : “Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, 
the vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he 
prophesieth of the times that are far off,” and God seeing 
that the question was proper, continued : “There shall none 
of my words be prolonged any more, but the words which I 
have spoken shall be done;” thus the foretelling prophecy 
was to be executed at once. Why can we not say the same ? 
why can we not complain of the indefinite time that proph- 
ecy stretches out, till at last it will be fulfilled — fulfilled 
when we will be dead and gone? 

If we read the prophecies of the prophets we learn that 
they are all of the nature of monition or of comfort; if 
these prophecies are for time to come they have no value 
whatever at the time they are spoken, and the prophet that 
can foresee the time when they would be needed, why should 
he not be able to see the exact time and make it known ? and 
why not be able to describe the faults they are to cor- 
rect exactly ? or why not be able to describe events likewise 
and not in problematic language, left for the divines to in- 
terpret and to wrangle over? Why must we tax our mental 
organs with studying out how the Shiloh of Genesis xlix., 


2 « 


SOME BURNING QUESTION^. 


io, means a Messiah that would appear 2,000 years later? 
Why must we be left in the dark in finding the rule laid 
down how to make the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah a proph- 
ecy that predicts an event of nearly eight hundred years 
later, when the language there clearly speaks in past and 
present tenses? Why must we not have a method to solve 
the mathematical problem of Daniel's seventy weeks of 
prophecy, to know the computation how to get to the exact 
time from then till the existence of Jesus of Nazareth? 

Why should the minds of some be endowed with perspic- 
acity to see clearly the many prophecies in the bible, to which 
the eyes of others are blinded with a veil of utmost un- 
certainty ? 

Why should so many ignorant and uneducated people 
comprehend the coming of Christ as the savior of mankind 
and believe in him and be saved, while many erudite scholars 
of vast honesty and deep earnestness seek in vain to recon- 
cile the predictions with the interpretations and the con- 
structions laid upon them and be condemned for unbelief ? 

Why must we be left in utter ignorance concerning the 
wise purpose of God in allowing the world to go on for four 
thousand years, during which His promise stands good that 
a savior would come to save mankind, instead of giving the 
Savior to the world at once; and when the Savior failed to 
accomplish the mission on his first coming a respite is 
granted to the wicked ones who did not receive him — for 
how many thousand years only God knows — until he shall 
have come a second time, meanwhile millions again die that 
are lost ? And so could we continue asking questions that 
with reason could not be answered, but blind faith would 
reply, “God knows best why !” A mortal father would make 
the way clear to his children, explaining why these paths 
must be avoided and 'the others chosen, why ruin and 
ignominy awaits them yonder, and honor and fame here, 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 39 

•/L . 

1 

but the heavenly Father, the most merciful guardian, bids us 
to follow these paths and avoid the others blindly. In vain 
ask we the reason. God’s reply is because “I want it so,” 
and if one had erred in his uncertainty he is doomed without 
mercy! Can this be so? Will a long-suffering God and an 
All-good Father decree it so? Let us hear what He saith 
about it : 

“As I live — I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; 
but that the wicked turn from his ways and live” (Ezek. 
xxxiii., n). Turn how? believe in the Savior? Let us 
again hear what the Lord saith : 

“When the wicked man turneth away from his wicked- 
ness that he has committed, and doeth that which is lawful 
and right , he shall save his soul alive ” (ih xviii., 27). It 
is not the faith then that the Lord expects of man, but to do 
which is lawful and right. These are words unequivocally 
plain, that need no interpretation and no construction. This 
is prophecy in that sense where the prophet speaks for God ; 
and all monitions, admonitions and exhortations which were 
intended to benefit the hearers or the readers of same were 
prophecies, useful and divine then, now and ever, all else of 
phantasmal character that had no meaning for the time 
when uttered but for time to come, how could they be bind- 
ing on our credulousness to-day? Why thev were uttered 
and written we cannot tell, unless we would be perfectly 
acquainted with the ideas, with the whims and fancies of 
both, the people and the prophets then living; then we 
would probably discover the allegorical characters of these 
pictures, drawn with such occultation ; and then we could de- 
cide whether they were intended for prophecies or were mere 
declarations. 

At present it behooves us but to sav, that Scriptures 
abound with prophecies terse and clear that tend to bind us 
together into a human fraternity, without necessitating us to 


30 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


speculate upon phrases and expressions some call prophecies, 
which have a tendency to disunite us, owing to their diver- 
gencies. Thus, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come, 
Gen. xlix., io,” is claimed to be a prophecy by Jacob who 
was not even termed a prophet, and has reference to the 
Messiah; Jesus, having met the conditions required, is that 
Messiah. Notwithstanding that the above translation from 
the Hebrew is grammatically incorrect and can otherwise 
be explained to refute the claim, I will take it as it is and 
probe its prediction as fulfilled in Jesus. He was born 430 
years too late and died nearly half a century too soon to 
meet the conditions; for the lawgiver departed from Judah 
in Zedekiah who was blinded and carried into captivity to 
Babylon (see ii. Kings xxv., 7) ; since when Israel never 
had a king of their own people any more thereafter, but had 
to submit to the laws of other kings, and that was 
430 years before Jesus was born. The sceptre departed 
from Judah with the destruction of the second temple, when 
all books and records were destroyed and no Israelite could 
prove his identity thereafter, since which therefore Israel 
had no tribe and no sceptre, and this was nearly half a cen- 
tury after the death of Jesus (see for more on this subject 
in “Uuprophesied Prophecies.”) 

Another important prophecy is brought before our knowl- 
edge from Isaiah vii., 14: * “Behold a virgin shall conceive, 
and bear a son, and call his name Immanuel.” Again I will 
not dwell upon the incorrectness of the translation nor ex- 
tend my argument any further than merely ask, who was 
this virgin? at what time was the child to be born, and for 
what purpose? and why was Jesus not called Immanuel if 

*For interpretations, translations, and explanations on these 
and other prophecies, see Dr. I. M. Wise’s “Defense of Juadism 
vs. Proselytizing Christianity.” 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


31 


this prophecy concerns him ? Surely the I^ord who himself 
speaks here to Ahaz, a wicked king, knew the time and 
place, when and where this was to happen, why did He with- 
hold it? Again we are shown a prophecy in Isaiah ix., 6. 
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son Is given: and 
the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name 
shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, 
The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Translation 
wrong again, but take it as it is, what government was on the 
shoulder of Jesus? how was he The Mighty God and The 
Everlasting Father , when he himself prayed to God: 
“Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, never- 
theless, thy will, and not mine, be done” (see Mat. xxvi., 39, 
Mark xiv., 36, Luke xxii., 42) ; then again: “My God, My 
God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (see Mat. xxvii., 46, 
Mark xv., 34) ; then again : “Father, into thy hand I com- 
mend my spirit” (see Luke xxiii., 46) ; all of which tend to 
show that he was in need of the help of the Great Father , 
into whose hands he commends his spirit when he feels him- 
self forsaken. How was he the Prince of Peace when he 
gives utterance to this language: “Think not that I am 
come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, 
but a sword” (Matthew x., 31, 34). This alone would 
suffice to call him the Prince of War, but he continues still 
worse : “For I am come to set a man at variance against his 
father,” said he, “and the daughter against the mother, and 
the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law” (see Mat. x., 
34, 35), just the reverse of the Messiah the Jews expected. 


UNPROPHESIED PROPHECIES. 

It is a fact beyond dispute that the whole Scriptures con- 
tain not a single prophecy concerning the Messiah that needs 
no interpretation, vet those that refer indisputably to the 
messianic era bear the interpretation on their face, clear and 


32 SOM£ BURNING QUESTIONS. 

distinct ; and every one can read and understand them with- 
out being a theologian, except that he will not find the name 
Messiah mentioned, as that name was ascribed to this high 
functionary by the rabbis. But Christian interpreters adduce 
prophecies alleging to foretell the Messiah in which there is 
not the merest inference to prove their allegation beyond 
dogmatic faith. At times the translations are incorrect, but 
whether this is due to the lack of knowledge of Hebrew 
grammar of the translators, or whether the errors were in- 
tentional to suit the interpretations better cannot be 
decided; but be this as it may, I will not even correct the 
translations, but show the inaptness of these prophecies as 
they are written ; nor will I enter into a treatise of 
giving the proper meanings of these prophecies, as that 
has been done by able authors before (see Dr. I. M. Wise’s 
“Defense of Judaism vs. Proselytizing Christianity” ) ; 
besides, it matters little here what they mean, as long as they 
are not the alleged prophecies of the Messiah, and especially 
of the Messiahship of Jesus. Nor will I ransack the whole 
bible and produce all such distorted predictions, but cite only 
a few for example, to show the misapplications. 

In Genesis xlix., io, it says: “The sceptre shall not depart 
from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until 
Shiloh come,* and to him shall the gathering of the people 
be.” 

At the time this was spoken Judah and Israel was only a 
family, with no sceptre and no ruling power yet ; nor was a 
sceptre and a kingdom of Israel spoken of before in the bible, 
how came Jacob to speak of it here in the sense the alleged 
prophecy indicates? 

How came Jacob to speak of the departure of a sceptre 
before it was yet obtained? Judah himself could not have 
understood it. Then again, how came Jacob to call the Mes- 

*1 have shown before that Jesus was born 430 years too late and 
a half century too soon to meet these conditions 


SOM# BURNING OUR&l'IONS. 


33 


siah Shiloh, why not simply Messiah ? And if, after all, this 
did not refer to the Messiah, and Jesus was the Shiloh 
spoken of, to what people did Jacob refer to be gathering to 
him? 

The people of Israel did not gather to him, of course, did 
he refer to all people in general? why, the Christians that 
gather to him at this late day are not numbering over one- 
fourth of the world's population; has this prediction come 
true? But let us continue to read the verses that follow 
this prediction. They say : “Binding his foal unto the vine, 
and his ass colt unto the choice vine; he washed his gar- 
ments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. 

“His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with 
milk." 

To whom does this refer? to Shiloh or to Judah? If to 
Shiloh, he would indeed be a very undesirable Messiah, to 
have one who washes his very clothes in wine — in the blood 
of grapes — until his eyes shall be red with wine. In other 
words, he shall be a sot. If it means Judah, I thank heaven 
that it was never fulfilled, which is apparent from the fact 
that there is no drunkenness in Judah. “But, hold!" says 
my friend, “the eleventh and twelfth verses are not included 
in Jacob’s prophecy; the tenth verse alone has that marked 
distinction." Where is that rule laid down? Who has a right 
to discriminate against the continuing of reading what 
belongs together? Surely there is but one step from the 
sublime to the ridiculous and that step is right here ; if Jacob 
had any idea at all of prophecy, he must have prophesied all 
or nothing. 

A very prominent prophecy is claimed in Isaiah vii.,< 14, 
but in order to understand it better we will cite with it the 
preceding verses 13 and 14. Here Isaiah says to the wicked 
King Ahaz: “Hear ye now, O house of David ; it is a small 
thing to you to weary men, but will ye weary God also?- 


34 


BURNING QUESTIONS. 


Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a 
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name 
Immanuel 

This is plainly spoken, then } to give a sign to the house 
of David, and not to all Israel, and not to take place over 
S£ven hundred years later. Who this woman was we will 
not discuss, but that my assertions are correct, 1 turn the 
page in the bible and read in the next chapter, viii., 2, 3, 
“And I took unto me faithful witnesses — and I went unto 
the prophetess and she conceived and bare a son ; then saith 
the Lord, call him Maher-shal-al-hashbaz.” Here the child 
spoken of must have been born without having waited cen- 
turies, and as we find the child grown into manhood, the 
prophet again speaks of him (ib., 8), “And he shall pass 
thriugh Judah, he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach 
even to the neck, and the stretching out of his wings shall 
fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel 

In the face of this, can we find a prophecy concerning the 
Messiah, notwithstanding that ha-alrnah } the young woman, 
is translated into “a virgin ?” Can we not distinctly see that 
it speaks of events then occurring with Immanuel then born ? 

In Isaiah ix., 6, we read : “For unto us a child is born, 
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his 
shoulder, and his name shall be called, Wonderful. Counsel- 
lor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (its 
explanation is found in Prophets and Prophecies) ; but here, 
too, after we shall have asked what government rested upon 
the shoulder of Jesus, and we must reply, none, we will con- 
tinue to read the verse that follows the passage of the al- 
leged prediction, and it says : “Of the increase of his govern- 
ment and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of 
David and upon his Kingdom, to order it, and to establish it 
with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for - 
rvftr The “increase of his government” dogmatists may 


BOMB BURNING QUESTIONS. 


3 . 


construe to »uit their purpose, but the “peace to which there 
shall be no end ” they cannot circumvent, for men have shed 
more blood on account of Jesus and his cause than was 
shed on account of any cause and religion. “That 
refers to the second coming of Christ,” is offered as an arg- 
ument, but that is contradicted by the words “henceforth 
and forever ” From the moment the decree went forth peace 
was to reign, and forever thereafter. Has this prediction 
come true? 

One of the strongest points of argument is offered in the 
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. There it is alleged that the 
suffering of Christ is foretold. The chapter reads : 

“i. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the 
arm of the Lord revealed? 

“2. For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, 
and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor 
comeliness ; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty 
that we should desire him. 

“3. He is despised and rejected Qf men ; a man of sorrows, 
and acquainted with grief : and we hid as it were our faces 
from him ; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 

“4. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sor- 
rows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and 
afflicted. 

“5. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was 
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace 
was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed. 

“6. All we like sheep have gone astray ; we have turned 
every one to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid on him 
the iniquity of us all. 

“7. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened 
not his mouth : he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, 
and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth 
not his mouth. , . : h] t 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


36 

“8. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and 
who shall declare his generation ? for he was cut off out of 
the land of the living: for the transgression of my people 
was he stricken. 

“9. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with 
the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, 
neither was any deceit in his mouth. 

“10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him : he hath put 
him to grief : when thou shalt make his soul an offering for 
sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the 
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 

“11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be 
satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant 
justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 

“12. Therefore will I divide a portion with the great, and 
he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath 
poured out his soul unto death ; and he was numbered with 
the transgressors ; and he bare the sin of many, and made in- 
tercession for the transgressors.” 

Here it is apparent that a report was imminent, and the 
prophet asks. “Who hath believed our report?” Not who will 
believe, not a report that will come to pass, but a report that 
hath passed already. He describes a suffering person in 
whom there was no comeliness or beauty. Jesus was known 
for rare comeliness. 

Then we ask, Who are the “we” and the “our” in this 
chapter ? Whose grief did he bear ? Whose sorrows did he 
carry? For whose transgression was he wounded? And 
for whose iniquity bruised? These questions we ask be- 
cause the Jews, for whom this book was written, did not 
recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and of others the prophet 
had not the remotest idea, or he would have said so ; if, with 
all these questions, it alludes to those who did accept him, 
no matter if they were Jews' or Gentiles, had it come to pass 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


37 


that, “with his stripes” (Jesus was not lashed), his followers 
were healed, that is, they became pure and have no more 
sins — for the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of all — or 
does it mean that they can now sin as much as they want, the 
suffering of this Messiah will take them all away? 

That this is not quite reconcilable with the sufferings of 
Jesus is apparent from* the fact that this sufferer was 
wounded, bruised, lashed to death, while Jesus was crucified 
to death. Surely in foretelling such important matter the 
prophet should have been more specific. This sufferer was 
taken from prison, and his grave was with the wicked and 
his death with the rich. Jesus was not in prison, and his 
grave was not with the wicked, for he was laid in a new 
sepulchre (see Mat. xxvii., 60; Mark xv., 46; Luke xxiii., 
55 ; John xix., 4). And how was he with the rich in death? 
The rich were not crucified or otherwise put to death. All 
in all, the prophet speaks here of a past and not of a future 
event, and there is in all Scriptures no rule laid down where- 
by we can change the past or the present tenses into a future 
tense, or vice versa, if it suits us, and call it prophecy. Re- 
ligion and reason both teach that the Lord is immutable; so 
must his word be unchangeable . 

That the Messiah was to be divine, even one with God, is 
claimed from the sayings of Jeremiah: “Behold the days 
come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous 
branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute 
judgment and justice on earth. 

“In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell 
safely ; and this is the name whereby he shall be called, The 
Lord our Righteousness/' Jerem, xxiii., 5, 6. 

The same prophet says again : 

“In those days and at that time will I cause the branch of 
righteousness to grow up unto David ; and he shall execute 
judgment and righteousness in the land. 


3 « 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


“In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall 
dwell safely; and this is the name wherewith she shall be 
called, The Lord our Righteousness,” ib. xxxiii., 15, 16. 

According to this the city shall be called Lord our 
Righteousness as well as the Messiah. Does it mean that 
both shall be gods? In that case, it should be Father, Son 
and Holy City. 

If we would attempt to translate all Scripture names we 
would have gods without number. We would have Bliah, 
God of the Father; Zuri Shaddai , My Almighty rock; 
Abijah , God is my Father; Adoniram , High Lord; Adoni- 
jah, my Lord is God ; Elijah, God the Lord, etc. 

That the prophecy above was not fulfilled in Jesus is too 
apparent in the words it expresses: “In his days Judah 
shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.” How safely 
they have dwelt for centuries in all lands and all countries 
of Christian rule! And see how safely they still dwell at 
this age of enlightenment in Russia and Morocco! That 
Lord — if it is Jesus — of Righteousness has dealt very un- 
righteously with Israel ; that Prince of Peace has given bitter 
strife to Judah ! so contrary to divine prophecy. 

We could fill pages more with such minconstrued prophe- 
cies, but these will suffice to show how inaptly Scripture 
passages are distorted and called prophecies concerning the 
Messiah, and how alleged prophecies are unprophesied. 

“God's law is perfect, it converts 
The soul in sin that lies: 

God’s testimony is most sure. 

It makes the sinful wise. 

“The statutes of the Lord are right; 

They do rejoice the heart; 

The Lord’s command is pure, it doth 
Light to the eyes impart. 

“Unspotted is the fear of God, 

Endure it doth forever; 

The judgments of the Lord are true, 

And righteous altogether,” — P$alm xix., jt-9, 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 

UNFULFILLED FULFILLMENTS. 


39 


It is beyond reasonable comprehension why such mistakes 
were made in the chronicling of fulfillments of prophecy 
concerning Jesus as recorded in New Testament. It is true, 
nevertheless, that not a single event shows in the life of 
Jesus a perfect fulfillment of his Messiahship. 

Matthew wants his birth predicted by a prophet, which 
prophhet he leaves to conjecture. He says : 

“For thus it is written by the prophet ; and thou Bethle- 
hem in the land of Judah, are not the least among the princes 
of Judah; for out of thee shall come a governor that shall 
rule my people Israel” (Matt, ii., 6). This could only have 
been taken from Micah v., 2, but it bears the stamp of in- 
aptness on its face. Jesus was not a governor, and surely 
did not rule Israel, who, as Christians themselves impute, 
did not receive him. 

When Jesus was born, according to Matthew, an angel 
appeared to Joseph at night, advising him to flee with the 
child to Egypt, for Herod sought to kill it (Mat. ii., 14, 15), 
and, “He took the young child and his mother and departed 
into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod : that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the prophet (again 
he fails to name which prophet), saying Out of Egypt have 
I called my son.” As none of the prophets said this in 
Scriptures, it is conclusively the most flagrant perversion. 
It must come from Hosea xi., t, where it says: “When Israel 
was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of 
Egypt.” 

How in the name of reason and honesty can this be made 
applicable to Jesus? Are these words not plainly and dis- 
tinctly speaking of Israel ? They can only be perverted, not 
even equivocated. 

Matthew continues to relate that, “When Herod saw that 


40 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


he was mocked of the wise men, he was exceedingly wroth, 
and sent forth and slew all chidren that were in Bethlehem 
and all the coast thereof, from two years old and under, ac- 
cording to the time which he had diligently inquired of the 
wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by 
Jeremy, the prophet, saying, In Ramah was there a voice 
heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel 
weeping for her children, and would not be comforted be- 
cause they were not” (ib. 16, 18). 

This is in substance from Jeremiah xxxi., 15, but to show 
how absurd it is to connect this in any way with the story of 
Matthew, as regards Herod, we will continue where he stops, 
and read the whole and not only a part. It reads : 

“Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and 
thine eyes from tears ; for thy work shall be rewarded, and 
they shall come again from the land of the enemy.” Is this 
not plain and clear that Rachel weeps not for slain children, 
but for children — “because they were not” — not near her, not 
at home, but in captivity in the land of the enemy; and a con- 
solation is offered her : 

“Weep not, for they shall come again from the land of the 
enemy.” It needs no lengthy argument to show that this did 
not refer to slain children ; and Matthew therefore must have 
left out that part which evidently did not suit his fulfillment 
ideas. 

How Matthew forces a fulfillment to call Jesus a Nazarene 
is really amusing. The passage he claims a prophecy is the 
grossest fictitiousness, as there is not the slightest trace of 
nor even a resemblance to such prophecy in the whole bible. 
He seems to make all movements of Jesus fulfillments of 
prophecies, and because Jesus happened to be awhile in Naza- 
reth he fulfills a prophecy that makes him a Nazarene. Let 
us see 'the tenability of this fulfillment. He relates : “When 
Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to 


SOM£ BURNING QUESTIONS. 


41 


Joseph, saying, arise and take the young child and his mother 
and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead* which 
sought the young child’s life. And he arose and took the 
young child and its mother, and came into the land of Israel ; 
but when he heard that Archelaus reigned in place of his 
father, Herod, he was afraid to go thither, notwithstanding 
being warned of God, he turned aside into the parts of Gali- 
lee. And he came and dwelt in the city called Nazareth, 
that it might he fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets 
(from this he would make it appear that all prophets pre- 
dicted it). He shall be called a Nazarene,” Matt, ii., 23. 

If Joseph had not been afraid to stay in the land of Israel 
as he returned from Egypt, he would not. have gone to Gali- 
lee, and would not have dwelt in Nazareth; hence, the name 
Nazarene is simply accidental. The fact is that there is but 
one passage in the Scriptures where a merest shadow of a 
similiaritv to the word Nazarene is found, and that is in 
Judges xiii., 5, where an angel tells the wife of Menoah that 
she would have a son, and it should be “a Nazarite to God , 
from his birth to the day of his death ” If Matthew refers 
to this for a prophecy — as he cannot refer to anything or 
anywhere else in Scriptures — he is guilty of the grossest per- 
version. Here it speaks of the child of Menoah’s wife, 
which “should be a Nazarite to God ” (not a Nazarene) and 
that “from the time of his birth,” not like Jesus, who so- 
journed in Nazareth several years after his birth. But even 
if we were inclined to believe Matthew, without referring to 
the Old Testament, there comes Luke and contradicts the 
whole story. He says : “And when the days of her (Mary’s) 
purification, according to the law of Moses, were fulfilled, 
they brought him (Jesus) to Jerusalem, to present him to the 
Lord” (Luke ii., 22), and when the child grew up he was 

*Matthew borrows this from Exodus iv., 19, where God says to 
Moses: “Go and return to Egypt; for aU t* 1 ? pien 3 r e dead which 
sought thy life,” 


42 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


brought there every year (ib., 41). According to this, he 
did not flee to and was not called out of Egypt. Whom 
shall we believe — Matthew or Luke? 

Matthew (ii., 6) makes Jesus a Bethlehemite foretold by 
Micah (v., 2), where it says: “Thou Bethlehem 
out of thee shall come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in 
Israel,” etc. It does not say that this ruler should be born 
there only, but that “he shall come forth” from there. Jesus 
was born in Bethlehem by the merest accident, according to 
Luke’s statement (see Luke ii.). His mother came there 
one day, and that night Jesus was born. The following 
night she fled with him to Egypt (see Matthew ii., 13) ; 
according to Luke she stayed there thirty days (see Luke ii., 
22). Did this make Jesus a Bethlehemite ? The one 
spoken of here was to be ruler in Israel. Was Jesus such? 
“This refers to his second coming” is offered as an argu- 
ment, but in that prophecy it says: “This man shall be the 
peace, when the Assyrians shall come into our land,” etc. 
The Assyrian government was overthrown 606 years before 
Jesus was born ; hence this cannot refer to Jesus. 

On one occasion, says Matthew, “Jesus cast out devils 
from many and healed all that were sick (Mat. viii., 17), 
that it might he fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias, the 
prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities and bore our 
sicknesses.” Here Matthew perverts again. Isaiah (liii., 4) 
says: “He hath borne our grief and carried our sorrow,” 
which cannot mean, under any interpretation, that he took 
them, but rather that he bore and carried them (i. e v suf- 
fered) for our sake, and not that he healed our sicknesses. 
(We spoke of this in “Unprophesied Prophesies.”) 

When Jesus, on one occasion, was asked for a sign, he 
said : “An evil and adulterous nation seeketh for a sign, but 
there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of Jonas ; for 
Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s 


SOM It BURNING QUESTIONS. 


43 


belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights 
in the heart of the earth” (Mat. xii., 38-40). Here, it is al- 
leged, he had foretold his resurrection, but the time of his 
lying in the sepulchre does not tally with his prediction. He 
was crucified on Friday and laid in the sepulchre late on that 
day. Sunday morning he was there no more (see Mat. 
xxvii., xviii. ; Mark xv., xvi. ; Luke xxiii., xxiv. ; John 
xix., xx.). He was accordingly in the heart of the earth but 
two nights, one day and a part of a day, and not three days 
and three nights, which leaves his prediction unfulfilled. 
The other evangelists say nothing of this. 

The phrase, “that it might he fulfilled” is sometimes 
made use of at events so insignificant that a real fulfillment 
would be utterly meaningless. 

“That it might be fulfilled ” says again Matthew (xiii., 
35), “which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open 
my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been 
kept secret from the foundation of the world.” Even if a 
prophet had said this, what is there in it to be fulfilled ? But 
this was not said by any prophet nor any Scripture writer 
with a view of foretelling some event. It was David who 
spoke in monitive terms : “Give ears, O my people, to my 
law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth. 

“I will open my mouth in a parable (not parables) ; I will 
utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, 
and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from 
their children,” etc. (Psalm lxxviii., 1, 2, 3). This is a sim- 
ple declaration for the time being, except where it promises 
not to hide from the children th&t which the fathers have 
known and told them, instead of which we are left in utter 
darkness if Christology is true. 

Matthew 1 wants to find a fulfillment in the Judas story also, 
as he tells us (Mat. xxvii., 3, 9) that when Judas repented 
pf hjs betrayal of his master, he brought back the money 


44 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


he obtained therefor, but the chief priest would not take it, 
and he cast down the thirty pieces of silver he had received 
and went and hanged himself. “And the chief priests took 
the silver pieces, and said, it is not lawful for to put them 
into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. 

“And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s 
field to bury strangers in. Wherefore the field was called 
the field of blood unto this day.” 

“Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy, the 
prophet, saying, and they took the thirty pieces of silver, the 
price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of 
Israel did value.” 

Here is an error and a discrepancy. The error is that no- 
where in Jeremiah can be found a passage that is similar to 
the above in the least form ; and the discrepancy is that, in 
Zachariah (xi., 12, 13), there we do find something similar 
in words, but the subject of one is so far different from the 
other that the reader will at once see there was nothing 
prophesied and nothing to be fulfilled. Here is from 
Zachariah : 

“xi., 7. And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, 
O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves ; the 
one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands ; and I fed 
the flock. 

“8. Three shepherds also I cut off in one month ; and my 
soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. 

“9. Then said I, I will not feed you : that that dieth, let it 
die ; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off ; and let the 
rest eat every one the flesh of another. 

“10. And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, 
that I might break my covenant which I had made with all 
the people. 

“l 1 ; And it was broken in that day ; and so the poor of th$ 


SOMli BURNING QUESTIONS. 4$ 

flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the 
Lord. 

“12. And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my 
price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price 
thirty pieces of silver. 

“13. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter; 
a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the 
thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the 
house of the Lord. 

“14. Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that 
I might break the brotherhood between Judah and 'Israel.” 

What this all means does not concern our argument at all, 
and it is but necessary to say, in short, that here the Lord 
bids the shepherd to cast the goodly price to the potter, 
above , a traitor repents and casts the thirty pieces of silver 
before the priests. 

Matthew’s assertion, however, does not need our refuta- 
tion, for the very Acts of the Apostles contradict him. It 
says in reference to Judas : 

“Now this man purchased a field with the reward of 
iniquity (hence he did not cast it down before the priests) ; 
and, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst (ihence 
did not hang himself) and all his bowels gushed out” (Act. 
i., 18). The writer of this furthermore says: “And it was 
known to all the dwellers of Jerusalem, insomuch as that 
field is called, in their proper tongue, Aceldamah, that is to 
say, the field of blood ; for it is written in the book of Psalms : 
“Let his habitation be desolate,” etc. (ib. 20, 21). According 
to this all the dwellers of Jerusalem knew it, and it is strange 
that Matthew did not know it. It is also strange that Mat- 
thew had to take prophecy to give it the same name as the 
writer of the Acts of Apostles gave it by means of quoting 
the book of Psalms. So much for the Judas story. 

The Evangelists mention (see Mat. xxvii., 35; Mark xv., 


SOMR BURNING QtJRS^lONS. 


46 

24; Luke xxiii., 34, and John xix., 23) that at the crucifixion 
the garments of Jesus were parted and lots cast upon, which 
Matthew, making a fulfilled prophecy again, relates thus : 

“And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting 
lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the 
prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon 
my vesture did they cast lots.” 

Here Matthew simply distorts the passage in Psalm xii., 
18. There David bemoans his lamentable position in a meta- 
phorical language, and cries : 

“They part (not parted) my garments among them, and 
cast lots upon my vesture,” alluding to his enemies that 
haunted him like dogs, that would have devoured him like 
lions, that would have pierced his hands and feet, to disable 
him to flee from them and defend himself when the oppor- 
tunity came ; they would have divested him of the very gar- 
ments he wore, and he prays: “But be thou not far from 
me, O Lord, O my strength, haste to help me. 

“Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the 
power of the dog!” (ib. 19, 20). As Jesus did not lose his 
life by the sword he had no occasion to pray thus, hence Mat- 
thew had to omit that part. But that seems to be the rule 
and method the Evangelists adopted to extract prophecies 
and predictions from the bible. They quote a verse or pas- 
sage disregarding the preceding and succeeding verses, pas- 
sages or chapters if it suits their purpose. 

We could positively take every prediction and every pro- 
phecy claimed as fulfilled in the New Testament and read the 
chapter or section it is quoted from wholly and integrally 
and show that none — not one prophecy became fulfilled ; and 
so could every impartial reader not fettered by the chains of 
dogma, or obscured by unreasonable and groundless faith. 

“Fond as we are, and justly fond of faith, 

Reason, we grant demands our first regard; 

The mother honour’d as the daughter dear — 

Reason’s the root, fair faith is but the flower.” * 


47 


UNMESSIANIC MESSIASHIP. 


The idea that a Messiah had once to come originated with 
the Jews ; that he did come and that Jesus of Nazareth was 
that Messiah, is now claimed by the Christians, Both opin- 
ions are based on Faith gained from inferences from Scrip- 
ture passages and sayings ; and, would that faith rest in the 
bosom of its holder peacefully, all wide discussions that have 
been waged would be needless and out of order, for none 
should in the least attempt to weaken the faith of another; 
but the faith of the Christian had so often menaced the 
peace and welfare of the Jew that reason has to step in and 
modify misconstructions and correct misinterpretations. It 
is not my aim to go over the ground that some scholars have 
gone over already, nor to exhaust an argument that cannot 
be exhausted, but to touch upon some points that will give 
the seeker after truth hints to search for himself and decide 
between reason and blind faith. With this understanding, 
iet me state that Scriptures promise and prophecy no Mes- 
siah, but a great deliverer who would redeem Israel from all 
their sufferings and establish among nations and mankind 
in general a universal peace. He would be a mighty sover- 
eign, a king who would reign with impartial justice and 
perfect righteousness, and banish all evil and wickedness. 
The rabbis gave him the name Messiah — in Hebrew 
mashiach, anointed, to indicate that as priests, kings and 
sometimes prophets were anointed by God’s sanction, so 
would this great redeemer come as the messenger of God. 

That this name was sometimes used in figurative terms, 
that is, one who was not actually anointed and was still 
called so, we learn from Isaiah xlv., i, where Cyrus, King 
of Persia, is called God’s ( mashiach ) anointed, which title 
he has merited by his benevolence and kindness to Israel ; 
we can then well understand when the rabbis speak to the 


£0M£ BURNING QUESTIONS. 


48 

people in their sufferings, comforting and consoling them: 
“God will send his anointed to deliver you from your 
troubles and effect your perfect freedom.” 

In Scriptures the times of this great and glorious epoch is 
designated as “The Last Days” and we find it pre-eminently 
described in Isaiah ii., 1-14. There it says : 

“And it shall come to pass in the last days that the 
mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top 
of the mountains, and shall be exalted above all the hills; 
and all nations shall flow to it. 

“And many people shall go and say, Come ye, let us go 
up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of 
Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in 
his paths ; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the 
word of God from! Jerusalem. 

“And he shall judge among the nations and rebuke many 
people. 

“And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and 
their spears into pruning-hooks : Nation shall not lift up 
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any 
more.” 

Micah repeats this almost verbatim (Micah iv., 1-3), and 
adds yet to it the following beautiful sentiment : 

“And they shall sit every man under his vine and under 
his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid — for all the 
people will walk, every one in the name of his God, and we 
will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and 
ever.” 

To what time or period may this “last days " have refer- 
ence? Surely not to the last days of the existence of the 
world, for that will never be; for, should it ever be, the 
great peace so beautifully typified would have no value. If 
no world would exist, for whom would it be required? It 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 




49 


must therefore allude to the last days of godlessness or 
despotism and autocracy. Shall then a Messiah take charge 
of synagogues, mosques, cathedrals and churches? No! 
Scriptures say that the house of the God of Jacob will then 
be established and exalted to the highest eminence, which 
nations and people will recognize, for they will flow to it to 
be taught the ways of the God of Jacob. At this culmina- 
tion of time swords will be destroyed and not needed, “for 
nation will not lift up sword against nation.” None will be 
afraid of religious intolerance and religious prejudices and 
persecutions, “for every one will walk in the name of his 
God” — follow the dictates of his religion, “and we will walk 
in the name of the Lord our God” — following the dictates 
of our religion forever thereafter. Did Jesus bring about 
this state of affairs? Do the nations and people go to the 
house of the God of Jacob endeavoring to learn his ways ? 
Why, just the contrary is the case. They want to convince 
us that we are wrong, and they are right, and we should 
learn from them. Do not nations fight the bloodiest wars 
with each other, and Christian nations at that? Can we not 
expect any day the heaviest clash of swords, so to speak, 
that was ever heard of? Does each and every one walk in 
the ways of his religion without disturbing his neighbor’s 
religion ? Why are missionaries sent out to convert others 
to their religion, so contrary to the prophecy we cited? 
Why do Christians denounce one another? Catholics hurl 
anathemas against Protestants, and Protestants condemn 
Catholics. Is this the perfect period of the Messianic times ? 
Can we not see that the mission of Jesus, and his coming, can 
in no way be identified with this prophecy? Now we will 
see who was foretold to bring about this glorious epoch. 
Isaiah says: 

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of 
Jesse — and the spirit of the Lord shall be upon him, the 


50 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


spirit of wisdom and understanding,” etc. . ? . “And 

with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked, and 
righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithful- 
ness the girdle of his reins. The wolf shall dwell with the 
lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the 
calf and the young lion and the fading together, and a little 
child shall lead them,” etc. (see Isaiah xi., i-io). In chap- 
ter lxv., 25, he says, expressing the same sentiment : 

“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, 
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God.” This 
root of Jesse he declares to be the “Ensign of the people” 
which the Gentiles shall seek, and concludes, “His rest shall 
be glorious” 

Ezekiel describes this almost identically, but in somewhat 
different language and in less words. He says : 

“I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed 
them, even my servant David (who was the son of Jesse) ; 
he shall be their shepherd, and I, the Lord, will be their God. 

“And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and I 
will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land. 

And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither 
shall the beast of the land devour them, but they shall dwell 
safely and none shall make them afraid,” etc. (Ezekiel 
xxxiv., 23-28.) 

Every one acquainted with Scripture idioms and Scripture 
literature will understand that wherever David is mentioned, 
after he was no more, he is taken as a criterion, and all the 
kings were called the sons of David, except they were of 
different descent, and then even if they in the great future 
shall be righteous men are figuratively spoken of as the sons 
of David, from the root of Jesse. In such terms that deliv- 
erer is to be Israel’s shepherd, who shall feed them — spirit- 
i*dly, of course — and otherwise govern their affairs amidst 
the most glorious peace, such peace before which sin and 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 5t 

wickedness shall vanish, and make all to dwell and rest in 
perfect safety. 

The rabbis called this the messianic era; the Christians 
claim that Jesus was the Messiah ; and yet, for more than 
eighteen centuries since he came the messianic peace failed to 
culminate. Wars become more and more bloody, battles 
more and more fierce ; which fact cannot reconcile the Mes- 
siahship of Jesus with that of the deliverer foretold in Scrip- 
tures, and with the Messiah of the rabbis, who was to be but 
a mortal king, while Jesus is claimed to be divine. 

The very idea that he was to be the “ Root of Jesse ” the 
descendant of David, which is agreed to by the Chris- 
tians, contradicts this claim. If he was divine, begotten 
by the Holy Ghost, he could not have descended from man, 
consequently he was not the root of Jesse, hence not the 
foretold Messiah; if. on the other hand, he did descend from 
David, and was the fulfillment of prophecy, he was not di- 
vine, but human ; thus, either one or the other character of 
Jesus must be abandoned. Which that shall be, either Faith 
or Reason must decide. 

The coming of the Messiah shall be visible to all, and not 
be sought in inferences and interpretations, as we learn from 
Isaiah xl., 5. 

“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh 
shall see it together and also Hi., 7, 8, “How beautiful upon 
the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth good tidings, 
that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, thy God 
reigneth ! 

“Thy watchman shall lift up the voice ; with the voice to- 
gether shall they sing: For they shall see eye to eye when 
the Lord shall bring again Zion.” Then he concludes with 
the sublime sentiment that does away with a belief in a tribal 
God, “And all the ends of tit e earth shall see the salvation 
of our God s ” 


5 2 some: burning questions. 

Jeremiah, in speaking of this great epoch, calls it “The 
Last Covenant,” and says : 

“I will put my law (the law will not be abrogated, only 
the covenant will be new) in their inward parts and write it 
in their hearts ; and I will be their God, and they shall be my 
people. 

“And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, 
and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they 
shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, 
saith the Lord” (Jerem. xxxi., 33). If, then, this event 
has long past, how comes it that we still have to use our 
energies to show our neighbors the knowledge of God, and 
they try to show it to us, when all should know it? Let 
again Faith or Reason decide. (More of this in “Saviour 
and Salvation.”) 

That Israel shall never be annihilated the Scriptures are 
full with assurances, yet a few will suffice to show this : 

“And I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an 
everlasting covenant with them. 

“And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and 
their offspring among the people : All that see them shall 
acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord 
hath blessed” (Isaiah lxi.., 8, 9). 

“And Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, 
and none shall make him afraid. 

“For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee ; though 
I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, 
yet will I not' make a full end of thee” (Jerem. xxx., 10, 11). 

“For I am the Lord, I change not ; therefore, ye sons of 
Jacob are not consumed” (Malachi iii., 6). Whatever char- 
acter, then, the Messiah shall have, Israel, according to the 
word of God, must stand and exist. 

Furthermore, the Messiah was promised to the Jews, and 
the claim that he came to them and they did not receive him 


SOMR BURNING QUESTIONS. 


53 


cannot hold good, for everything, so Christians claim, had 
to be according to fulfillment of prophecy ; this not finding 
prophecy in Scriptures is not a fulfillment, but a reproach 
on the will of God. He designed to redeem Israel and 
promised them a redeemer, but he could not accomplish his 
design, for the Jews, not receiving their redeemer, frustratd 
his will — as if any man could frustrate the will of God. The 
Lord, who was able to send his son into the world by an im- 
maculate conception, and who could foresee that a Messiah 
would be needed, and permitted his prophets to foretell it, 
could not foresee that at the last moment he would not be ac- 
cepted! He could not foresee that those needing redemp- 
tion would not want to be redeemed. 

Authentic history shows how readily the Jews accepted the 
impostor Bar Cochba (132 C. E.) when he offered himself 
as the Messiah, on the mere proof of his boldness and brav- 
ery, without looking to an immaculate conception, without 
asking for miracles, and without searching out his pedigree, 
until they found themselves deceived and deluded. As late 
as the seventeenth century we find then willing followers of 
the other false Messiah Sabbathai Zebi, until he, too, proved 
to be an impostor, but Jesus they did not accept — our Chris- 
tian brethren claim — of course not, because he never offered 
himself to the Jews as the promised Messiah. (More on 
this in “Discrepancies.”) 

Will the Messiah then come at all, and when? may be 
asked. This can be best answered if we understand what the 
functions of a Messiah shall be, and that is just what we 
have now explained. He shall be, as we have learned, a de- 
liverer of people from suffering, tyranny and oppression. He 
shall bring about a most glorious peace, such that insures 
safety to all, and teach all to know God. 

Now, what (I will not say who) can do this better than 
Knowledge, Enlightenment, Culture and Civilization ? which 


54 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


we will, very aptly, call here the “Spirit of the Age or still 
better, the “ Spirit of Progress This is the spiritual Mes- 
siah that illumines the minds of the people, and prepares 
them to know the Lord better and better, by which darkness 
and superstition slowly but surely recede. As to a personal 
Messiah, any one that contributes toward bringing about the 
happy state of affairs just mentioned may with impunity be 
compared to a son of David, to a deliverer, as he helps to 
bring about the messianic time. 

Those that accept this sublime truth have already the 
Messiah-spirit in their soul, and those that are yet in dark- 
ness — those that still cleave to blind faith, they will not see 
he Messiah until they are cured of this opacity; for a per- 
sonal Messiah, a direct descendant of David, literally speak- 
ing, will never — can never come, and the spiritual one they 
are not in a condition to receive; hence the Messiah — the 
universal Messiah, accepted by one and all, will only come 
when the light of culture and civilization will shine so ef- 
fulgently that it will permeate every human breast, and 
brighten up every human mind. That will plant the Mes- 
siah-spirit into every soul, and establish the cognizance 
among the entire human family, that from the rising unto the 
setting of the sun none but God will be glorified. 

\ 

SAVIOR AND SALVATION. 


No two words in the whole Scriptures have received at 
the hands of divines and expounders the prominence as the 
words savior and salvation, but neither have any two words 
been so misapplied and misconstrued. They have been made 
the pivots on which revolve the whole existence of the un- 
explored future. Soul, in Hebrew nephesh ,* does not al- 

•Nesha.mah would mean soul unequivocally, and this word is not 
found in the Bible connected with the Savior or salvation. 


§OMJ$ BURNING QUltSttONB. 


SS 


ways apply to the immortal soul, but more frequently to per- 
son. When it stands in conjunction with eating, working, 
stealing, swearing, etc., it clearly indicates person. Why 
may it not indicate the same when it is to be saved? It is 
but Christian dogma that discovered in it the theory of sal- 
vation for hereafter. Let us see an example how it will 
stand. 

In the Old Testament David says in prayer: 

“He shall spare the poor and needy, and he shall save the 
soul of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit 
and violence” (Psalm lxxii., 13, 14). 

Is it not proof apparent that David had no reference here 
to the world to come at all ? He prayed for the redemption 
of the soul of the needy from deceit and violence, and 
surely there is neither deceit nor violence in the world here- 
after, hence the prayer must have had undoubted reference 
to a present state of existence where deceit and violence are 
rife. 

In the New Testament James speaks of it as follows: 
“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one con- 
vert him, let him know that he which converted the sinner 
from the error of his way shall save a soul from death , and 
shall hide a multitude of sins” (James v., 19, 20). That 
this, too, does not refer to a life beyond is evident from the 
fact that he wrote this to his brethren in faith and not to un- 
believers in Christ — the Savior — hence their faith could not 
have been alluded to as a means to save the soul, but the con- 
version to truth, which shall hide a multitude of sins; conse- 
quently it speaks of a moral and not literal death of the soul 
— a death on earth where sin must needs be hid; in the life 
above there is no sin. This theory is clear in Exekiel xviii., 
27, where it says : “When the wicked turneth away from his 
wickedness, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he 
shall save his soul alive.” 


56 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


From the earliest date of Israel’s conception of the divine 
word to the present day, savior and salvation were under- 
stood far differently from what dogmatic Christians con- 
strue and interpret them. Isaiah, the prophet of prophets, 
expresses the true meaning of them when he says : 

"Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies 
pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them 
bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up to- 
gether” (Isaiah xlv., 8). 

This is the keynote to religion, sublime and godly. 
Righteousness comes from above, but salvation springs from 
the earth; the two together make a healthy combination. 
The way of righteousness we are taught by heavenly re- 
ligion, salvation we obtain by our manner and conduct, by 
our deeds and propensities. These are not mere specula- 
tions or ideas, but purely biblical doctrines. 

When Moses led the Israelites from Egypt and they were 
standing before the Red Sea, he said to them : 

'‘Fear ye not, stand! still, and see the salvation of the Lord, 
which he will show you to-day” (Exod. xiv., 13). 

Saul on one occasion says to Israel, after a victorious bat- 
tle : "There shall not a man be put to death this day : for to- 
day the Lord hath brought salvation in Israel” (I. Sam. xi., 

13)- 

When Saul threatened to slay Jonathan, the people plead- 
ed in his behalf: "Shall Jonathan die, who has wrought this 
great salvation in Israel” (ib. xiv., 45). 

When Saul threatened David’s life Jonathan protested: 
"His works have been to thee-ward very good — for his sake 
the Lord wrought a great salvation to Israel” (ib. xix., 5). 
Israel always understood salvation as a material help in 
trouble and distress, and this salvation came through God, 
and also often through man. 


BURNING QUESTIONS. S 7 

Isaiah prays: ‘‘Be thou their arm every morning 1 , our 
salvation also in time of trouble” (Isaiah xxxiii., 2). 

Jeremiah pleads : ‘‘We have sinned against thee, O, the 
hope of Israel ! the savior thereof in time of trouble” ( Jerem. 
xiv., 8). The same prophet speaks consolingly : “It is even 
the time of Jacob’s trouble. But he shall be saved out of it” 
(ib. xxx., 7). 

Moses was the man who should and would have taught 
Israel the true meaning of salvation, if it had any beyond 
what the word unequivocally expresses ; instead of that, he, 
too, speaks to the people: “Ye shall be saved from the 
enemy'’ (Numb, x., 9). 

Samuel, too, says : “I will call on the Lord, who is worthy 
to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies” (II. 
Sam., xxii., 4). To demonstrate it clearly that salvation lay 
and lies in material strength, we will once more quote Isaiah : 
“We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls 
and bulwarks” (Isaiah xxvi., 1) ; and: “Thou shalt call thy 
walls Salvation and thy gates praise” (ib. lx., 18). 

Nehemiah speaks in unmistakable terms when he says: 
“And in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, 
thou heardest them ; and according to thy manifold mercies, 
thou gavest them saviors” (Nehem. ix., 27). 

That the New Testament writers, who were Jews, with 
Jewish ideas, understood salvation in the same sense is ap- 
parent from the words of Jesus himself, which they chronicle. 

When he anticipated his capture he prayed : “Now is my 
soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father, save me from 
this hour!” (John xii., 27). He did not say, Father, spare 
me from this hour, but save me, he said. Still more explicit 
do we find it where Jesus said to the blind man he restored 
to sight: “Thy faith hath saved thee” Luke xviii., 42); 
hence, a man was saved alive — saved from blindness and 
restored to sight ; and thus could we cite passages after pas- 


SOM£ lJURNiNd QlJR^lONS. 


58 

sages to demonstrate the fact that saving and salvation al- 
luded to material life, but if these will not suffice to do this, 
chapters and pages with the most glaring light illuminating 
them would not suffice. 

To the reasoning mind this will satisfactorily demonstrate 
why the Jews recognize no other divine savior than God 
alone, and why they believe that everybody, be he Jew or be 
he a Gentile, can work out his own salvation. 

But for the sake of argument, let us take it for granted 
that we must have a savior to save our souls. What then? 
Then we apply for information to o«r trusty friend — the 
friend for whom our fathers lived and died, who through 
all the mutations and vicissitudes in Israel’s career and his- 
tory was the faithful guide and guardian — Old Testament 
is his name, and in his words we are told repeatedly that 
besides God there is no Redeemer and no Savior. 

All the writings of the prophets are replete with these doc- 
trines, but if the words of God are accepted as true, we need 
not repeat passage after passage; this one record will 
suffice : 

“A just God and a savi-or, there is none beside me. Look 
unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ; for I am 
God, and there is none else. 

“I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my 
mouth in righteousness, and shall not return ” (Isaiah xlv., 
21, 22). Give now the words savior and salvation any 
meaning you choose, and we find it in God. In Him : can all 
be saved, and He gives us His binding assurance that He 
hath sworn — sworn by the holiest thing, himself — and this 
assurance u shall not return in other words, not be nulli- 
fied. Now, if a man would make a promise under a solemn 
oath and then not fulfill his promise, would he not be a 
wretched perjurer, not worthy of the confidence of men any 
longer? Would then God violate His oath? Is not His 


SOM£ BURNING QUESTIONS. 


59 

word, even without oath, more trustworthy than the words 
of the best and greatest of men? And yet it is claimed that 
God made a new dispensation, abolishing the old, regardless 
of what He hath sworn before. This claim is adduced from 
a prophecy which reads thus : 

“Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a 
new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house 
of Judah,” etc. “This shall be the covenant that I will make 
with the house of Israel ; after those days, saith the Lord, I 
will put the law in their inward parts, and write it in their 
hearts ; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, 
and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and 
every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall 
all know me” (Jerem. xxxi., 31). 

This does not indicate that the old creed had to make place 
to a new ; it only promises to impress the existing law in the 
hearts of mankind so deeply that doubt shall disappear. All 
shall know God. 

According to this it is meet to ask, who knows God prop- 
erly, the Jews or the Christians? The Jews know him as 
One and indivisible ; the Christians know him as a Trinity. 
Who is correct? “They shall teach no more every man his 
neighbor — saying, know the Lord,” says the prophecy, “for 
they all shall know me.” Why, then, has the Christian to 
teach the Jew to know God properly, and vice versa? Con- 
sequently this new covenant has not yet been made, and 
Christianity is nineteen hundred years too previous. 

Besides, this covenant is promised to Judah and Israel, 
who were ever eager to enter into covenant with God. How 
comes it that others have the covenant? 

If Israel did not want it the prophecy is false and shows 
that the prophet, though inspired and guided by God, did not 
foresee well ; if, however, the prophecy is correct, we must 


66 


SOMfv BURNING QUESTIONS. 


trust in the word of God and wait till the time will come 
when it will be fulfilled. 

One fact we must bear in mind, that right here in this 
prophecy, interpret it as you will, no vicarious atonement 
is promised, but every man shall have the law in his “inward 
parts ” every man shall have it “written in his heart .” What 
law does this refer to? The law of the Romans? the law of 
the Persians? the law of the Egyptians? Why, we know 
that it means the law of God as given by Moses. The 
prophets and Israel recognized no other in Scriptures ; and 
this law says: 

“The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, 
neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; 
every man shall be put to death for his own sin,” Deuter. 
xxiv., 1 6, and Ezek. xviii., 20. (On this subject see “Which 
Is the Best Religion?”) 

To make the prophecy regarding the “new covenant ” 
clearer, we will read the preceding verse to that prophecy, 
and there, too, this sentiment is expressed. It says : 

“In those days they shall say no more the fathers have 
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge; 
but every one shall die for his own iniquity” (Jerem. xxxi.,- 
29, 30). Then he continues: “Behold, the days come, saith 
the Lord, that I will make a new covenant,” etc. We must 
not divide the chapter, but read the passages as they come ; 
then we will understand the subject before us more clearly; 
then we can see that according to that “new covenant” none 
was to die, or is to die, for others, but each and “every one 
shall die for his own iniquity ” 

The Lord gave Moses a vivid example of this doctrine 
when the Israelites have sinned with the golden calf. There 
Moses prayed: 

“Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made 
them gods of gold; yet, now, wilt thou forgive their sin! 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


61 


If not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast 
written” (Exodus xxxii. 31, 32) ; and the Lord said unto 
Moses : 

“Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out” 
(ib. 33). The very prayer of Jesus, “Let this cup pass from 
me if possible,” substantiates this, for had Jesus known that 
one had to die for the people, and that he was the one, he 
certainly would not have prayed 1 thus; but he died for a 
cause, and not for a people, and he knew it, or else he would 
not have prayed as he did. 

The necessity of a savior besides God would seem dis- 
paraging of the power of God, who was able to create this 
world, and has supremacy over all that exists, sustains and 
supports the universe. Should he not be able likewise to 
save the sinner’s soul without instituting a sacrifice of one 
man to die for all ? It would neither be in accordance with 
the mercy of God to wound and take the life of one for the 
sins of others, nor would it be perfect justice that the guilty 
sinner should escape punishment by the wounds and death 
of another. 

God is powerful to save and forgive, but man, each and 
all, have to atone for their own transgression ; in what way, 
in w-hat manner the Lord will reward or punish us in life 
hereafter, or what the future state of existence is at all, we 
are in total ignorance of; and we only trust in the just and 
truthful God that He will not let wickedness and wrong go 
unpunished, and that virtue and goodness he \vill cause to 
stand pre-eminent over vice and corruption. But how and in 
what manner this will be brought about is known only to the 
God of omniscient wisdom alone. 

It is then the highest duty of everybody to exert his best 
efforts to make himself as perfect as possible. His parents 
and his teachers may be his most faithful saviors, and salva- 
tion is best obtainable by receiving their faithful guidance 


62 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


and instruction, and by following the directions of their 
monition and advice. Thus he will be a fit object for eternal 
life. 

Salvation in general means to raise one to a loftier exist- 
ence, to sublimer virtues and more perfect morals ; but the 
existence beyond this existence is called eternal life, which 
we undoubtedly enter into without speculative preparations 
here; that is, without endeavoring to do good with a view 
of being rewarded in life hereafter, and without eschewing 
evil for fear we will be punished or have less reward. We 
must love God, hence his creatures, who are our neighbors, 
must receive our best considerations. We must be good for 
the sake of the goodness itself and for the love of Him who 
first taught mankind the virtue of goodness; and for the 
same reason must we avoid any deed that is wrong without 
the mercenary idea of a Savior and Salvation. 


DISCREPANCIES. 


That the Messiah was promised to the Jews Christians do 
not impugn, but they claim that when he did come they did 
not receive him. They also claim that the Jews crucified 
him ; it now behooves us to look into the evidence they offer, 
and see whether their claim is tenable, and also whether the 
Jews were stubborn or erring for over eighteen hundred 
years in not turning to Jesus as the Messiah, as the Savior. 

John says: “He (Jesus) came to his own, but his own 
received him not” (John i., n), but beyond this there is not 
the merest record in the New Testament corroborative of 
this statement, except what Jesus himself very abstrusely 
said, and that is quoted from Psalm cxviii., 22, “The stone 
-hich the builders rejected has become the chief corner,” 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


63 

which it is claimed means that Jesus, rejected by the build- 
ers, has become the chief of the corner. In what way the 
Jews can be called here the builders is hard to perceive, and 
in what way this would indicate that Jesus, the chief of the 
corner, means Messiah is certainly a puzzle; but we will not 
adduce our opinion from inferences; we will follow Jesus 
and establish a position based on facts as chronicled. 

When Jesus made his first public appearance, what should 
have been his course to pursue? Should he not have gone 
first to Jerusalem and announce himself either to the high 
priest or to all the principal leaders of the Jews as the prophe- 
sied Messiah ? But, some will say, time was not fulfilled yet, 
and he had to wait till all had to be fulfilled. Why did Jesus 
not say so? Why did he not communicate, at least, with the 
high priest and most learned of Jews, and tell them that he 
was the Messiah, but his time of fulfillment had not yet 
come? Instead of this, as he began to preach, he walked by 
the sea of Galilee among the fishermen, gathering followers 
and adherents along the seashore and along the river Jordan, 
visiting synagogues and preaching in them (see Mat. iv., 
17-23; Mark i., 16-23; Luke iv., 14, 15). 

As he preached in the synagogues did he say, or in any 
way hint, that he was the Messiah ? He did not. He called 
upon the people : “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand” (Mat. iv. 17). This was by no means a startling 
revelation to the Jews, as similar idioms were employed by 
Hebrew prophets before. Isaiah exhorts the people to 
praise Jehovah (see Isaiah xii., 1, 6) and reminds the per- 
verts that: “The day of the Lord is at hand” (ib. xiii., 6). 

Joel calls upon the people to repent, and exhorts them: 
“Alas for the day! — for the day of the Lord is at hand” 
(Joel i., 15; ii., 2, 12). 

Zephaniah cries: “Before the day of the Lord’s anger 
cometh up°n you seek ye the Lord, all the meek of the earth” 


6 4 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


(Zeph. ii., 2, 3). What, then, the prophets called the day 
of God Jesus termed it the Kingdom of Heaven; both are 
metaphoric phrases, with no indication whatever that Jesus 
conveyed the idea that he was the Messiah ; it would rather 
signify that he wished to be understood that he preached, 
like the prophets of old did, Jewish doctrines. That many 
things are said of him in the gospels which we hardly believe 
that he said is evident from that he is made to say, “Ye have 
heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
and hate thine enemy”' (see Mat. v., 43). He must have 
known that such a thing is nowhere said in the Old Testa- 
ment. Why, Moses was teaching, “Love thy neighbor as 
thyself” (Lev. xix., 18) ; and whilst we cannot love an 
enemy, he still forbade us to hate him, or in any way to op- 
press him (see Exod. xxii., 29, xxiii., 9; Lev. xix., 33). 

Even the Edomites, who did not permit Israel to pass 
through their territory, and the Egyptians who oppressed 
our forefathers he taught not to> abhor (see Deutr. xxxiii., 
7 )- 

Not only must we not hate our enemies, but Moses made 
it incumbent upon us to aid and assist them in their need. He 
says: “If thou meet thy enemies’ ox or ass goiqg astray, thou 
shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass 
of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, thou shalt 
surely help with him” (Exod. xxiii., 4, 5). We cannot be- 
lieve that Jesus did not know these laws ; if he did, and still 
said what Matthew above told us, he maliciously misrepre- 
sented Israel’s law, and it would have been no wonder if the 
Jews would not have received him as the Messiah. 

Jesus walked with and talked to the people freely. 

Scribes and Pharisees occasionally went out to hear him, 
but he seemed to be disinclined to be as communicative with 
them as he was with his disciples and followers. To the 
Scribes and Pharisees he speaks in parables and leaves them 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 65 

in darkness as to their meaning, but lucidly explains them to 
his disciples. 

He roves through Galilee and Judea, till at last he reaches 
Jerusalem. He enters the temple, and — what then? Does 
he then announce himself the promised Messiah? Or does 
he in any way seek to have an understanding with the temple 
authorities concerning his high mission, and is rejected? 
Nothing of the kind. He directs his attention to the money 
changers and venders, he overturns their tables and scatters 
their money; w T hich methinks very improbable. If there 
w r ere any money changers and dealers, they must have been 
there by permission of the temple authorities ; would they 
have submitted to an unauthoritative stranger? Would they 
have allowed him to scatter their money and be cast out 
themselves? But, be this as it may, we cannot find the 
slightest evidence, even if all be true, which would indicate 
that Jesus was the Messiah, offered to and rejected by the 
Jews. 

After he had visited the temple as told 1 above “he went into 
the city of Bethany” (Mat. xxi., 12-17), an d visited there- 
after the^temple almost daily; yet he made never known his 
office and his mission to the proper authorities. Whatever 
other people said of him. and whatever other people called 
him, was merely hearsay, and from such evidence we could 
hardly adduce properly that “he came to his own, but his 
own received him not” meant that he came to the Jews and 
they rejected him. 

That as a man and a scholar he was treated by the Jews 
with utmost cordiality and courtesy John himself admits, 
when he relates that the Scribes and Pharisees brought be- 
fore him a woman who was caught in the very act of adultery 
that he may pass judgment upon her; and when he pro- 
nounced his sentence it was accepted with perfect submis- 
sion (see John ydi., 3-1 1) ; although thi$< tpo, is yerv im- 


66 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


probable, for no cases could be tried by others but the au- 
thorized judges, and in the designated court rooms, but I 
cite this for the sake of argument and comparison. 

Did not Jesus speak in words unmistakable when he re- 
plied to the imputation that he ate with publicans and sin- 
ners : “The whole need no physician, but the sick ; I came 
not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance ?” (Mat. 
ix., n-13). Would it not have been the proper time to say, 
if John is correct, I came to you, but you received me not? 
Instead of which he says plainly and unequivocally : 

“The whole need no physician, but the sick.” In other 
words: Those that have a divine law — as you Jews have — 
need nobody to come and give you religion, but these poor 
heathens that are void of the knowledge of the true God, 
they need my ministration and enlightening instruction, and 
to them I came. 

Not only was Jesus never offered to or rejected by the 
Jews as a Messiah, but the whole New Testament was not 
written with the intention of offering it to the Jews, or else 
it would have been written in Hebrew instead of Greek; 
for, notwithstanding that the language of the Romans, under 
whose rule Israel then lived, was Greek, the Jews neverthe- 
less spoke best the Hebrew language, and their cult was ex- 
clusively Hebrew, as it is at this very day in Palestine. 

As to the crucifixion, according to Mark it took place 
the third hour (see Mark xv., 14), but according to John it 
took place the sixth hour (see John xix., 14). Matthew, 
Mark and John have it at Golgotha (see Mat. xxvii., 33; 
Mark xv., 22; John xix., 17), while Luke has it at Calvary 
(see Luke xxiii., 33) ; now which is correct? According to 
Matthew (xxvii., 44) the two thieves reviled Jesus; accord- 
ing to Luke (xxiii., 39) only one reviled him, while the other 
rebuked the reviler. 

YS? furthermore deem it discrepant that he was crucified 


SOMJt BURNING QUS&TIONS. 


$7 


between two thieves, inasmuch as thieves were never known 
to be crucified according to Roman law ; they were castigated 
and otherwise punished and fined, why should there have 
been an exception made at this time? Hence we suppose 
that the writer wished to relate a tragedy, and to enhance it 
had two thieves crucified, one at each side of Jesus. 

To make the crucifixion probably still more thrilling, Jesus 
had to be betrayed by one of his disciples. 

When we know how auspiciously he entered Jerusalem, 
with multitudes to strew branches and flowers in his path, 
shouting loud hosannas (see Mat. xxi., 8, 9; Mark xi., 9; 
Luke xix., 38 ; John xii., 13) ; and that he afterwards visited 
the temple almost daily, as he himself said: “I was daily 
with you in the temple and ye laid no hold on me” (see Mat. 
xxxvi., 55 ; Luke xxii., 53), we can not see why it was neces- 
sary to have one of his disciples to betray him, or why to 
betray him at all. Must there not have been hundreds of 
others that knew him ? even the Scribes and Pharisees them- 
selves who often conversed with him must have known him ; 
hence we conclude that to derogate the Jews a disciple by the 
name of Judas (the nearest name to Jehudi, a Jew) was 
chosen to betray him, with a kiss at that, in order to give the 
story more pathos. It conveys the idea that one Judas was 
capable to kiss his very master and betray him at the same 
time, as if one to betray another could not have simply 
pointed him out, or invent another signal whereby the cap- 
tive should be recognized. The “Non- Sectarian” for Sep- 
' tember, 1895, page 416, speaks thus of the Judas affair: 
“It is just to remark, in passing, that Judas has been the 
victim of unspeakable nonsense. He may have been as bad 
as he is pictured, though that would argue a wretched ignor- 
ance of human nature on the part of Jesus, but he is not 
bad in the way that he is pictured. That he sold his Master, 
as a Roman general might sell a prisoner — sold him for a 


68 


SOME BURNING QUESTION®. 


few pieces of silver — would be the smallest, meanest 
treachery imaginable, had such a procedure been possible. 
The story was fastened upon Judas because the principle of 
it was so contemptibly mean, and the teller of the story had 
some reason for hating Judas. The story itself, however, is 
ridiculous to the point of imbecility. Judas did not have 
Jesus in keeping, he had no means of defending him or se- 
creting him — how could he sell him? There was no possi- 
bility of anything like a betrayal, in the physical sense. A 
deserter can betray the keeper of a fortress by guiding the 
enemy to a secret entrance — Jesus was not in a fortress — his 
movements and whereabouts were open and known to every- 
body — he was not hiding nor trying to escape. It is beyond 
all reason that officers of the law, detectives needed to have 
the man pointed out who had been preaching in the temple 
every day, and about whom the entire city was in a furor of 
his dicipleship. 

It is quite likely that Judas “betrayed” Jesus exactly as 
Peter did — denied that he was one of the disciples, to save 
his own neck; and that, unlike Peter, he did not return to 
his discipleship.” 

That the Jews had no law of their own to pass sentence on 
felons or criminals needs no remonstration, and had they 
such law Jesus would not have been crucified, but stoned. 
Crucifixion was by no means permissible according to Jewish 
law r , but stoning, burning, beheading or hanging were the 
modes of inflicting deaths upon offenders. Crucifixion 
would have been an offense in itself ; it goes then to show 
that the Jews had neither right nor influence, for had they 
right themselves or the influence to demand the death sen- 
tence of a person, without sufficient proof that he was guilty, 
to be put to death, w*e have reason to believe that if Jesus 
had died at all he would have died another death. 

Not having had the right to judge and to sentence a man, 


BORXiNC Qtf£$TION$. 69 

how dared they to go out at night to Gethsemane as Matthew 
and Mark have it, or to the Mount of Olives as Luke says, 
or to the Brook Cedron as John relates (see Mat. xxvi., 36; 
Mark xiv., 32; Luke xxii,, 39; John xviii., 1), and arrest 
Jesus as they did, without permission from the authorities? 
But the authorities did arrest him, which shows that the Jews 
had nothing to do with it. 

If, on the other hand, they did have the right, what needed 
they to bring him before Pilate ? But the words of Pilate to 
Jesus answers this amply. They tell us that the power was 
vested in him. He says : “Knowest thou not that I have 
the power to crucify, and have the power to release thee?” 
(John xix., 10) . Yet he is made to say to the Jews : “Take 
ye him, and judge him according to your law” (ib. xviii., 
31 ), but the Jews instead of availing themselves of the priv- 
ilege, reply : “It is not lawful for us to put any man to 
death” (ib.) According to this statement, who crucified 
Jesus? Is it not plain evidence that the Romans did and the 
Jews had no hand in it at all ? 

That all this was written with anti-Jewish feeling is evi- 
dent from the story that the chief priests, scribes, elders and 
pharisees are made to march the streets with the turbulent 
and boisterous mob. Even if these dignitaries were corrupt 
and debased they would still not have condescended to lower 
themselves thus so unnecessarily, and surely that was not 
necessary to do, since their intentions and purposes were ac- 
complished in the halls of justice. 

That these priests, however, were not as corrupt as they 
are made to appear is evident from that, when, as recorded, 
Judas repented himself and brought back to them the money 
he had received for betraying Jesus, they said: “It is not 
lawful for to put that money into the treasury, because it is 
the price of blood — and they bought with it the potter's 
field” (Mat. xxvii., 6, 7). We could hardly believe that 


SOME BURNING QtmS'ftON^ 


To 

men who so scrupulously guarded the purity of the temple 
treasury as not to put money into it gained so lawlessly, 
could be so depraved as to put a man to death innocently. 

But here too a discrepancy arises, probably for the purpose 
of doing away with that part which shows the piety of the 
priests, for the Acts of the Apostles contradict this very 
nicely. There we read : 

“Now this man (Judas) purchased a field with the reward 
of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the 
midst, and all his bowels gushed out” (Acts i., 18). Which 
of the two accounts about Judas shall we believe? Did he 
cast the money down before the priests and hanged himself, 
or did he buy a field and got killed by falling? Do not 
Christians consider one as trustworthy as the other? Were 
they not both written under inspiration? If then one in- 
spired writer can write something to contradict another in- 
spired writer, why may not some other parts of his writing 
be contradictive also? 

Another reason why the crucifixion may not have taken 
place at all is the fact that the first day of Passover never 
falls on Friday, for the reason that if the first day of Pass- 
over would happen on Friday HosJianah Rabbah , or the 
seventh day of the Feast of Booths, would have to be on 
Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, on which day it were forbid- 
den to gather brook willows necessary for the ceremony on 
that day as prescribed by rabinnic law, hence the almanac 
system had been so arranged that the first day of the Pass- 
over never occurs on Friday, whilst the crucifixion has taken 
place on Friday, which was the first day of Passover. That 
is evident from the fact that Jesus and his disciples celebrated 
it the previous night according to Jewish customs, who cele- 
brate their Sabbaths and feasts from eve to eve (see Lev. 
xxiii., 32, and for Passover Numb, xxviii., 16, ijr). 


MM# BURNING QUESTIONS. 


7 t 

That there was not a Jew — at least not an intelligent Jew — • 
present at the crucifixion, we adduce from this : v 

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 
saying: Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani? That is to say, My God, 
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 

“Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, 
said, This man calleth for Elias.” Mat. xxvii., 46, 47. Had 
there been a Jew present, he would have understood the 
language, for it was Hebrew, the language of the Jews, and 
would have corrected the misapprehension ; as it is, we have 
reason to believe that there was not a Jew there near enough 
to hear it, and if Jesus was crucified at all he was so by the 
Romans, at the instigation of the Romans, and according to 
the usage of the Romans. They regarded him politically as 
dangerous to their dynasty when they heard a mob shouting: 
“Hail, King of the Jews!” — although the shouters were any- 
thing but Jews — and they decided to put him out of the way. 
To the Jews he was neither hurtful, nor in their way. 

This is easily understood when we learn that Herod sought 
to kill Jesus when a child (see Mat. ii., 13), and Joseph took 
him to Egypt and kept him there until Herod died, then he 
returned to the land of Israel (ib. 20), as Matthew relates, 
“But when he heard that Archelaus reigned in Judea in place 
of his father Herod, he was (still) afraid to go thither, not- 
withstanding being warned of God in dream, he turned aside 
into the parts of Galilee” (ib. 22). According to this it is 
apparent that the life of Jesus was in imminent danger of 
being killed — not by Jews but by the rulers, who at last seem 
to have succeeded in crucifying him. 

It is certain that Pilate was not friendly disposed to the 
Jews,* and had shown that when writing the superscription 
on the cross : “This is the King of the Jews!” 

•This assertion is corroborated by Josephus. Antiqu. of tbe 
Jews, B. xviii. Chap, iii, r 


?i SO M K BtfitNlNd QUESTIONS, 

He well knew that nothing was more offensive to the Jews 
than to call the crucified one their King; and they protested 
against it, but Pilate abruptly answered, “What I have writ- 
ten I have written” (see John xix., 22). It can hardly be 
believed then that he would have acceded to the demands of 
the Jews to crucify Jesus without cause — and a cause such 
that would have been in conformity with the Roman law — 
had it not been his own desire, or the will of the govern- 
ment. 

This is not conjecture or speculation, but manifest truth 
as chronicled in the New Testament; not simple faith but 
plain reason. Some, of course, prefer faith — blind faith — to 
the sublimest reason, as Moore has it: 

“Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast 
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.” 

But those who prefer transcendent reason to obscure faith — 
those that earnestly and honestly seek the light of culture 
and enlightenment in religion, as in all other matters, will 
hail the words of the Jewish sage — Dr. I. M. Wise — as a 
sweet monition, as he sets them to melody and song : 

“To light and truth devote thy life, 

I,et virtue reign and banish strife; 

Let God alone the scepter sway, 

And sing his praise fore’er and aye.” 


GOD IS UNCPIANGEABLE. 


From the preceding pages we perceive that Judaism still 
exists, lives and prospers, and evidently so by the will and 
aid of God. To believe in Judaism therefore, one must 
needs believe in the one, sole and indivisible God, who speaks 
in terms unmistakable : “I am the lU>rd thy God' ... thou 
shalt have no other gods besides me” (Exod. xx., 2 and Dtr. 

v - 7 )- . 


SbftNtNC QUi&TlON& 


n 

His prophets, the messengers and bearers of His word 
and of sublime truth, convey to us His assurance that He is 
the only God, and that He would not give His glory to an- 
other (see Isaiah xlii., and ib. xlviii., n) ; neither does He 
ever change (see Malachi iii., 6) ; yet our Christian brother 
tells us that He is not one but three in one. 

Did the prophets deceive us, or did the Lord rescind His 
assurances and did give Jesus His glory, and did change 
from Unity to Tri-unity? “Oh, no!” replies my Christian 
brother, “God gave not His glory to another, nor did He 
change, but Jesus and God are one and the same; they were 
so from the very beginning, and the ancient scribes and 
prophets knew it, and wrote of it, but we must search for 
and understand their writing.” But since these writings are 
so ambiguous that we can not see them as Christians do, we 
must not allow to be called blind and stubborn, but show 
them that we see with reason , while they merely see with 
faith ; and where faith steps in blindly, reason must step 
out. 

Is it possible that our ancient scribes and prophets knew 
the trinity doctrine, yet did not speak of it in unmistakable 
language? Why did they hide these thoughts in phrase- 
ologies that divines have to wrangle over ? Were they afraid 
to come out witb God’s truth ? We hardly believe so. These 
men were bold and dauntless, rebuking princes and kings 
without fear or favor. They certainly promulgated truth as 
they understood it, and we understand them just as they 
spoke. So did primitive Christians. They were Jews, like 
were New Testament writers, who wrote with Jewish ideas : 
but later Christians put constructions upon constructions, 
distorting passage after passage, making faith the substitute 
of reason, until they have so educated up the adherents to 
the church that to modern Christians it is quite natural to 
believe as they do. 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


?4 

Let us see whether this assertion is correct. Paul, who is 
the rampart of Christianity, always makes God and Jesus 
Christ two different objects. In writing his epistles he in- 
variably begins with : “Grace to you and peace, from God 
our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” (see Rom. i., 
7; I. Corint. i., 3; II. Corint. i., 3; Galat. i., 3; Ephes. i., 2 ; 
Philip, i., 2; Colos. i., 2; I. Thesal. i., 1 ; II. Thesal. i., 2; I. 
Tim. i., 2 ; II. Tim. » , 2, and Philem. i., 3). 

Peter, the rock on which the church is built, makes use 
of the same expression (see II. Peter i., 2). John, too, 
writes the same way (see I. John i., 3, II. John i., 3), and 
Jude also (see Jude i., 4), from which it is apparent that they 
had not the least idea to make a god of Jesus ; or else they 
would not have inserted the words “and from” in the above 
phrase. They would have written, “Grace to you and peace, 
from God our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ.” As it is, it is 
quite evident that they believed as other Jews did, except 
that they followed Jesus and his sect, which other Jews did 
not. 

According to Jewish doctrine it is impious and sacrilegious 
to raise a man to godhead, and just so to reduce God to the 
state of man. Paul speaks of Jesus indubitably as a man “a 
little lower than angels” (see Hebr. ii., 9). He declares ex- 
plicitly : 

“There is one God, and one mediator between God and 
man, the man Christ Jesus” (I. Tim. ii., 5). Again he says 
referring to Jesus : 

“This man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses” 
(Hebr. iii., 3). Still again he says : 

“This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for- 
ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (ib. x., 12). 

Thus he not only calls him man but makes him a distinct 
individual from God, who sits at God’s right hand. He re- 
peats this idea, as he writes to the Colossians : 


SOM# BURNING QUESTIONS. 


75 


'‘Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth 
on the right hand of God” (Colos, hi., i). To the Romans 
he writes : 

“It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who 
is even at the right hand of God” (Rom. viii., 34). 

Mark says: “After the Lord (Jesus) had spoken unto 
them he was received up into heaven and sat on the right 
hand of God” (Mark xvi., 19). Luke says: “Hereafter 
shall the son of man sit on the right hand of God,” Luke 
xxii., 69. Peter says: “Jesus Christ, who is gone into 
heaven, and is on the right hand of God,” I. Peter iii., 22. 
This is sufficient to prove that ancient Christians believed 
Jesus to be a man worthy to sit at the right hand of God, 
wherefore they have even discovered in Psalm cx., 1, a pro- 
phecy, as it reads : “Sit thou at my right hand,” etc. Jesus 
sitting at the right hand of God, as New Testament declares, 
is it reasonable to believe that he is the same with God? 
Can one sit at his own right hand? Reason says no! If, 
then, my assertion is not in accordance with Christian doc- 
trines the New Testament is at fault, for I resort to no con- 
structions and seek no refuge in inferences, but quote words 
and passages, verbatim et literatim. If on the other hand 
New Testament is a God-inspired work, chronicling events 
and sayings faithful and correct, Christians have no au- 
thority to confound Jesus with God. 

He is simply called in the New Testament a mediator and 
advocate between men and God (see I. Timothy ii., 5; Hebr. 
xii., 24; I. John ii., 1), and not God himself. 

The words and actions of Jesus himself never indicated 
that he was anything but a man. He prayed like a man, 
and very devoutly so (see Mat. xxvi., 39-44; Mark xiv., 35- 
40; Luke xxii., 41-46; John xvii.). See how despondently 
he prays on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me!” so manlike ! 


76 SOME BtmNiNC QUESTIONS. 

He says it himself that he came not to do his own will, 
but the will of his Father who sent him (see John vi., 38, and 
ib. xvii., 8, 21). If he says occasionally that the Father is 
in him and he and the Father were one, it may be a meta- 
phoric expression he makes use of, to indicate that God is in 
him and he does the will of God; he says it nevertheless 
plainly: “Verily, verily, I say .unto you the Son can do 
nothing 1 of himself, but what he seeth- the Father do,” etc. 
(John v., 19). He speaks still plainer when he is asked: 
“Good master, what good thing shall I do to inherit eternal 
life?” and he says : “Why callest thou me good ? There is 
none good! but one, that is God” (Mat. xix., 16, 17). Surely 
he would not have said this had he been identical with God, 
or in any way felt that he was. 

He goes to John to be baptized (see Mat. iii., 3). Needs 
a god the baptism of man ? 

He is carried by the devil into the wilderness to tempt him, 
and after forty days fasting he is a-hungered (see Mat. iv., 

1 -10, and Luke iv., 1-10). Has a devil the power over a god 
and dare to tempt him? and would a god be a-hungered? 
“Certainly not, but this has another meaning,” may some' 
say ; but what right has one more than another to put con- 
structions on this, or on any part of bible ? Language must 
speak for itself, and must be understood by all alike, by Jews 
or Gentiles. 

Further proof that Jesus considered himself a man we 
find in the words ascribed to him after his resurrection. He 
tells Mary, “Go to my brethren and tell them I ascend unto 
my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God” 
(John xx v , 17). Can any language be plainer and more 
unambiguous, showing that he called men his brethren, 
whose Father was his Father, and whose God was his God? 
Hence he was by his own acknowledgment a man like other 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 77 

men; and it is obviously true that he was made a god by 
the invention of later and not primitive Christians. 

But our attention is called to the miracles that he per- 
formed. He healed the sick ; he raised the dead ; he changed 
water into wine; he fed two thousand with two fishes; he 
walked on the w r ater; and this ought to satisfy us that he 
was divine. 

Miracles, however, prove nothing to the reasoning mind ; 
especially to Jews who are warned against miracle- 
performing prophets in no ambiguous terms. 

‘‘If there arise among you a prophet,” says the Lord to 
Israel through Moses, ‘‘or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth 
a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder come to pass 
whereof he spake unto thee saying: Let us go after other 
gods which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; 
thou shalt not harken unto that prophet” (Deutr. xiii., 1-3). 
There comes then our Christian brother and wants use to be- 
lieve in a man-god — a god Israel had never known. He 
wants us to serve this god, to worship him as a god ; miracles 
must not, cannot , will not be proof. Jesus cannot be God. 
The Lord alone is God , and none else ! 

Even if we take it for granted that Jesus performed 
miracles, there were others in Scripture times that performed 
miracles. 

The whole career of Moses was a chain of miracles, from 
the time he brought the plagues upon the Egyptians almost 
to his dying hour. 

He leads the Israelites with a pillar of cloud by day and 
a pillar of fire by night (see Exod. xiii., 20). He guides 
them through the Red Sea dry while the pursuers drown (ib. 
xiv.. 21-29). He makes the undrinkable, bitter water palat- 
able (ib. xv., 23-25). He brings down quails and manna 
from heaven (ib. xvi., 13-24). He strikes the rock with his 
staff and water comes flawing (see Exodus xvii., 5-7). H# 

L.ofC. 


7S 


SO MX BURNING QUESTIONS. 


makes a serpent of brass, and the serpent-bitten people that 
looked up to it were healed (ib., Numb, xxi., 9), and per- 
forms other miracles. 

Joshua makes Israel cross the Jordan dry (see Josh, in., 
16-17), and makes the walls and fortifications of Jericho fall 
by the mere sound of trumpets (ib. vi., 20). The sun and 
moon stand still at his command (ib. x., 12-13). 

Samuel causes the rain to descend from the skies (see I. 
Sam. xii., 18, etc.), A mere woman of Endor had the skill 
to bring Samuel out of his grave and speak to Saul (ib. 
xxviii., 7-14). 

Elijah foretells a drought that came as predicted. He is 
fed miraculously by ravens ; he makes a barrel of meal and a 
cruise of oil last indefinitely during a famine ; he brings to 
life a dead child (I. Kings xvii.). 

He calls down fire from heaven that burns men that want 
to capture and do him bodily harm (see II. Kings i., 10, 
etc.). He smites the water with his mantle (so did Elisha) 
and crosses it dry (ib. ii., 8) ; he flies to heaven alive 
(ib. 11). 

Elisha makes the poisonous water wholesome (ib. 21) ; he 
brings to life a dead child; he makes a poor woman fill with 
oil from one cruise all the vessels she could obtain ; he heals 
Naaman of leprosy (ib. iv., v.) ; he makes an ax swim on the 
water; causes the Syrians to be struck blind (ib. vi., 6-18) ; 
yet none of these men claimed to be anything but men. 

Why should it have been necessary for God to divide him- 
self and then be reunited into one? Could not a god who 
created the universe and all that is therein accomplish any 
purpose without taking a part of himself and calling it his 
son, send it to this world to suffering, torture and death, and 
then integrate himself again? In vain will the answer be, 
“It hath pleased the Lord to do so,” “He knows it best and 
we cannot ascertain his purpose/' etc., etc, We know that 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


79 


the Lord would not allow such important matter to be con- 
cealed in abstruse language, when he speaks plainly and dis- 
tinctly as he calls himself ''God, and none else beside him” 
He is indivisible and one! So he was, so he is, and so he 
mil be and remain to all eternities. 

God was proclaimed the mighty King, 

The Power, the Most High; 

To Him all men and angels sing 
Due praise on earth and sky. 

He was, will be, as now He reign9, 

Immutably Supreme; 

His hand the universe sustains, j 

He only can redeem. , i; 

He is the one beyond compare, 

For who can equal God, ‘ 

Who was, who is, and will be e’er? ;>■>•* ' 

No man on natal sod; 

Nor even in the skies above, 

In spheres most lofty; none 

Can be like God, the God of love, 

The God alone — the One! 



APPENDIX. 


DO DEVIL AND HELL EXIST? 


The Hebrew language has no words for devil and hell, 
hence they are not found in the Old Testament. Trans- 
lators have suited themselves to the words, and constant ap- 
plication in the pulpit and Sunday schools has so impreg- 
nated the minds of the people that, without considering the 
feasibility and reasonableness, believed, and some still be- 
lieve, with certainty that there is a devil and there must be 
a hell. To find the faintest description of them we will in 
vain search all authentic books, the bible included. Myth- 
ology it is that gives profuse illustrations of them. There 
we see the picture of Charon as he receives the candidates 
for admission into hell. Terrible monsters guard the en- 
trance, so that only those can enter who are duly admitted ; 
for all cannot enter when they will. Only those whose bodies 
are buried when they die can go to hell ; the unburied wander 
about the shores for one hundred years, and then are carried 
over. Virgil portrays it thus ; 


SOM# Burning gu&> ; rfoR£. 


"‘Just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell, 

Revengeful Care and sullen Sorrow dwell; 

And pale Disease and repining Age, 

Want, Fear, and Famine s unresisted rage. 

Here Toil and Death and Death’s half-brother Sleep 
v-corms terrible to view, their sentry keep. 

With anxious pleasures of a guilty mind, 

Keep Fraud before and open torce behind; 

The Furies’ iron beds, and Strife that shakes 
Her hissing tresses and unfolds her snakes.” 

This is the entrance to that terrible place where the brim- 
stony fire burns eternally and forever. 

Charon is the ferryman that navigates on Cake Avernus — 
a lake unnavigable by any human being, for its vapors as 
they rise are so poisonous that no birds can fly over it alive, 
but fall down dead in their flight. This ferryman of hell is 
*n old, decrepit, long-bearded, fellow, whose eyes are aglow 
with fire and whose obscene attire is bound by a girdle foul 
with filth and grease. 

We are told that hell is beneath, just as heaven is above; 
but we would in vain ransack the bowels of the earth to find 
the place. We know most certainly that if we had the facili- 
ties to bore a hole through, the centre of the earth until we 
came to open space again that we would drop down on 
China. We would perhaps pass on our descent ores, metals, 
minerals and fluids, cold and warm, but hell would nowhere 
be encountered. Where, then, is that horrible place, if it is 
not above, and below it cannot be? Before we should at- 
tempt to make deep search 'for it, we could ask : Must there 
necessarily be a hell ? Could not theologians preach the finest 
sermons and promulgate the sublimest precepts and doc- 
trines without the devil and hell theory? Intelligent parents 
would consider it fallacious to teach a child to fear a boog- 
aboo ; why must we, then, in this age of culture and enlight- 
enment have devil and hell to terrify men and women of high 
minds and pure sentiments in order to keep them from con* 
mitting sins and wickedness? 


*QU* BURNING QUlSGTIONS. 


83 

Religion pure and divine needs not proffer Heaven and 
Paradise as a bribe to do good, nor hold out Hell and Hades 
to frighten us away from evil propensities. The love of 
God and neighbor must inspire us to these virtues and 
attributes. 

"That is all very good doctrine as far as it goes,” will 
some say, "yet the fact that there is a hell cannot be sur- 
mounted !” And the logic they apply is obvious : "Every- 
thing has an extreme opposite,” they argue. "There is a 
torrid zone and there is a frigid zone; a north pole and a 
south pole: just so is there a God, and there are angels of 
infinite benignance and absolute love and kindness, with a 
Satan and demons of endless malignance, and deep hateful- 
ness and cruelty; and just so is there a heaven of eternal 
bliss and great delight, and a hell of everlasting torture and 
terrible punishment.” This logic, however, methinks not 
very sound, for if everything must have an extreme opposite, 
hell being an awfully hot place — hot enough to roast, fry and 
burn the bodies of poor sinners — heaven must be the extreme 
opposite, so cold that the saints must be ireezing. What 
would be the difference in the torture of roasting and 
freezing ? 

There are a thousand and one other matters wherewith we 
could employ our energies in moulding and shaping the 
morals and virtues of mankind without polluting religiosities 
with the hell theory. 

"Unstained thoughts do seldom dream on evil.” Train 
the thoughts of the child to create pure sentiments and it 
will grow up to manhood and womanhood with minds noble 
and true. 

Criminals are the most superstitious people, and, with but 
rare exceptions, are the strongest believers in devil and hell ; 
yet they are debased and degraded, corrupt and vicious. 
Next may be classed the ignorant and uneducated- If we 


8 4 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


could guide them, and make them better and purer — if zve 
could — with the doctrines of devil and hell, we would prob- 
ably be willing to sacrifice reason to obscureness ; but when 
it comes to the inculcation of religion into the minds of a 
cultured, refined, enlightened and intelligent people, hell 
need not exist. Pure men and women cannot benefit by 
such terrible doctrines — by such modes of blind faith. 

‘‘For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; 

His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.” 

And the devil and hell theory is certainly but a mode of 
faith, embodied neither in revealed nor in natural religion. 

Dryden beautifully says : 

“Revealed Religion first informed thy sight. 

And reason saw not, till Faith sprung the light. 

Hence all thy natural worship takes the source; 

’Tis Revelation that thou thinkst discourse. 

Else how comest thou to see these truths so clear. 

Which so obscure to heathens did appear? .... 

Those giant wits in happier ages born — 

When arms and art did Greece and Rome adorn — 

Knew no such system; no such piles could raise 
Of natural worship, built on prayer and praise, 

To One Sole God.” 

He strikes the true chord. Religion, natural and revealed , 
must stand out in bold relief, so superior to and sublimer 
than the religion of the Greeks and Romans, whose argu- 
ments were arms, and the only thing one could admire was 
their art, by which they chiseled the ornaments that adorned 
their gorgeous edifices as well as the idols they worshiped. 
“We worship no idols,” may some boast sanctimoniously; 
no, but they believe that wherever you go, whatever you do, 
the devil is constantly lurking. Every step we make he is 
there to ensnare us and to entrap us. Is that natural re- 
ligion? See the infant’s tranquil smile that knows of no 
devil and has no comprehension of fearing evil spirits. 
That if patural (religion), innocent and pure. The know]- 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


*5 

edge of the existence of the devil is inculcated into its little 
brain by tuition, hence that part cannot be natural religion. 

Did Moses, when teaching those glorious commandments 
that have never become obsolete, advance the idea: “The 
devil will take you if you will disobey them?” Did Jesus of 
Nazareth send his disciples to preach his gospel with the un- 
derstanding that the devil will have those who will not accept 
or follow them? Of course not; hence it is not revealed 
religion. It is acquired religion — acquired by obscure faith 
— faith that cannot stand before the searching light of 
reason. 

A father will do all that lies in his power to keep aloof 
from his children every tempetation, but the Lord creates 
man prone and feeble, instills into his system passions and 
desires, then creates a devil — a tempter so powerful that but 
God has more power, and when this frail creature of a man 
has fallen into the trap of the diabolic plots of devils, the 
all merciful Father will not clip the power of the devil, but 
punish the unfortunate mortal. Can this be so? Would 
God create a devil of such sort and then punish us for being 
overcome by his subtle treachery? Writing from a Jewish 
standpoint, it behooves us to ask in what sense did the primi- 
tive Christians take the term devil ? Taking Jesus as a 
criterion, we find him — after he had said to Peter, “Upon 
this rock will I build my church” — rebuking him at another 
occasion in the words, “Get thee behind me, Satan !” Satan 
is the word which bible writers translate devil ; accordingly, 
Peter, the good and true, is called for a perversion devil, but 
subsequently had still remained good and true, from which 
we would infer that man can become a devil, and change 
back to man. The passions, the desires, the inclinations that 
mislead him make him a devil, accordingly reverse attributes 
— noble propensities — make him the opposite, which is an 
angel. 




86 


SOME BURNING QUESTIONS. 


In the earlier prophetic literature of the Hebrews there is 
no recognition of any spirit of evil at variance with God, 
who alone was power supreme on heaven above and on earth 
below. 

The knowledge of demonology Israel must have acquired 
first at Babylon, where a dualistic system of power was be- 
lieved in ; one was the power of good, the other the power of 
evil ; each was regarded with fear and reverence ; still it 
never played an important part with the Hebrews, for their 
faith in Jehovah kept them cognizant of His great power, 
and their trust in him was so unbounded that they knew his 
mercy and loving kindness would not allow a devil to hold 
dominion over any who trust in God. The primitive Chris- 
tians, who were Jews, had the same faith, but the heathens 
that became Christians could not entirely abandon the devil 
and hell doctrine which was inculcated into them in heathen- 
dom, and as these Christians began to predominate their 
ideas took deep root until all believed in a demon power. 
The late Rev. John Tulloch, treating this subject from a 
Christian standpoint, said : “It may be still the prevailing 
opinion of Christendom that there is an evil power working 
in the world opposed to the divine ; but whether this power is 
personal, or how far it touches the human will; or, again, 
whether there is a subterranean kingdom of demons with a 
prince of demons or devil at their head., and how far such 
a kingdom has any relation to human destiny, are all ques- 
tions that must be held to be very unsettled, or maintained 
with very doubtful confidence in any section of the Christian 
church. . . . The idea of devil certainly no longer 

bulks in Christian thought as it once did, nor is his reign the 
recognized influence that it once was over human life and 
experience,” and this was written nearly half a century ago, 
when culture and enlightenment were still not in such 
ascendency as at this time, Rev/ A. g. Aglen, a noted 


SOMli BURNING gUl^tiONB. 


« 7 . 


English divine, in his Eschatology says: “This is in a 
great measure the history of lawless and uncertain 
thoughts. ... Of these, modern thoughts take no no* 
tice. ... In every age the popular opinion has been 
both more extravagant and more dogmatic than the ex- 
pressed formulas of the church,” and yet these divines were 
neither deposed nor tried for heresy; because they uttered 
God’s truth. 

God is the only power that rules and governs the world, 
and there cannot be, there is not a devil to hold a second po- 
sition ; hence there is no abode of demons — no hell ; nor are 
these necessary agencies to promote religiosity and actuatr 
mankind to be more moral and virtuous. 

God hath furnished the soul of man with a mind capabh 
of discerning good from evil, just from unjust, right from 
wrong, and of discovering by the light of reason what ought 
to be pursued or avoided. 

To this he has annexed the will, on which depends the 
choice. With these means at hand, and with enough forti- 
tude to withstand the temptations that surround us, the 
noblest manhood and the purest womanhood can be main- 
tained, and that is what religion is intended for. 

The most religious person is not whose belief is the 
strongest, but whose deeds are the noblest; not whose amens 
are the loudest and the most, but whose propensities are the 
most beneficial. 

,# He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; 

Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, 
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, 

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.” 

(Ps. xxiv., 4, 5.) 

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